HYflc^       ^UIBRARY 

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StacR 

Annex 


THE   RELIGION  OF  MOSES 


THE 

RELIGION    OF   MOSES 


ADOLPH  MOSES 


LOUISVILLK 

FLKXXKR  BROTHERS 

lS9! 


COPYRIGHTKD,    lS)4,   BY   ADOLI'H    MOSKS. 


Stack 
Annex 

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DEDICATED 
TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

NATHAN    BLOOM 


PREFACE. 

THE  little  book  which  I  offer  to  the  public 
lays  no  claim  to  originality.  It  is  rather 
hoped  that  the  reader  will  find  in  it  nothing 
that  will  seem  new  and  startling  to  him.  It 
is  simply  an  attempt,  made  with  much  diffi- 
dence, to  bring  the  basal  moral  and  relig- 
ious ideas  of  Yahvism  or  Jehovism  into 
clear  view,  and  to  trace  their  origin  back 
to  their  true  source — to  the  inspired  genius 
of  Moses.  For  I  hold,  with  the  biblical  tra- 
dition, that  Moses  was  in  the  deepest  and 
widest  sense  the  founder  of  the  religion  of 
Israel.  The  prophets  who  came  after  him  did 
not  originate,  but  only  developed  and  propa- 
gated the  religion  of  ethical  monotheism 
first  promulgated  by  the  son  of  Amram. 
My  contention  is  that  Mosaism  never  was 
a  tribal  religion.  From  the  very  day  of  its 
appearance  it  was  universal  in  essence  and 
scope.  Time  was,  when  such  views  needed 
no  defense;  but  nowadays  it  is  by  many 
considered  unscientific,  unworthy  of  a  criti- 


Vlll  %    PREFACE. 

cal  student  of  history,  to  follow  the  lines  of 
the  biblical  tradition  with  regard  to  the  part 
played  by  Moses  in  the  religious  life  of  man- 
kind. The  rise  of  true  monotheism  and  of 
its  lofty  doctrines  is  ascribed  to  the  prophets 
of  the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries  before 
Christ.  The  creative  work  of  Moses  is  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  The  grandest  actor 
in  the  drama  of  humanity 'son  ward  spiritual 
struggle  appears  a  shadow}'  or  mythical 
figure  to  the  distorted  vision  of  hyper-criti- 
cism. The  greatest  religious  and  moral 
revolution  known  to  history  is  by  an  influ- 
ential school  of  modern  writers  referred 
back  to  the  mysterious  agency  of  slow  im- 
personal development.  The  Shibboleth  of 
evolution  is  indiscriminately  applied  to  all 
phenomena,  and  is  believed  to  explain  read- 
ily even  the  most  extraordinary  manifesta- 
tions and  the  greatest  works  of  the  human 
mind.  Our  age  refuses  to  credit  great  men 
with  great  things.  There  is  blind  faith  in 
the  progressive  forces  and  the  wonderful 
achievements  of  the  masses.  The  teeming 
multitudes  of  average  men  are  personified 


PREFACE.  IX 

as  nations,  and  each  people  is  represented 
as  the  unconscious  producer  of  all  the 
results  of  its  civilization.  The  influence 
of  individual  genius  on  the  intellectual, 
moral,  religious  and  political  growth  of 
mankind,  is  belittled  or  eliminated  as  much 
as  possible. 

This  tendency  is  easily  accounted  for. 
It  was  after  a  long  and  bitter  struggle 
against  the  baneful  rule  of  one  man  and 
against  the  selfish  sway  of  aristocracy  that 
the  reign  of  democracy  has  been  established. 
The  political  equality  of  all  men  has  been 
fought  and  won  on  the  just  theory  that  all 
men  are  born  equal  as  to  all  human  rights. 
In  the  stress  of  this  great  spiritual  battle 
the  old  disposition  of  the  race  to  hero-wor- 
ship necessarily  suffered  shock.  The  belief 
of  the  supreme  influence  of  great  men  on 
the  destinies  of  nations  was  well-nigh  de- 
stroyed, and  the  opposite  belief  was  engen- 
dered, that  the  masses  are  the  true  creators 
of  civilization,  that  the}T  have  by  a  slow 
process  evolved  all  that  constitutes  the 
wealth  and  glory  of  mankind.  In  a  word, 


X  PRKFACE. 

the  spontaneous  evolution  of  the  masses 
toward  the  higher  life  became  a  sort  of 
dogma  with  leading  historians  and  social 
philosophers. 

Yet  a  health)^  reaction  has  already  set  in. 
Thinking  men  have  commenced  to  realize 
that  the  drama  of  human  history  minus  the 
parts  played  therein  by  the  world's  great 
men  would  be  like  the  play  of  Hamlet  with 
Hamlet  left  out.  It  is  always  the  indomi- 
table energy  of  a  small  minority  of  superior 
men  that  gives  birth  to  new  ideas  and  ideals, 
originates  and  sustains  new  movements,  and 
pushes  the  masses  forward  along  the  path 
of  progress.  In  matters  of  science,  art,  in- 
vention and  government  the  facts  are  too 
patent  to  require  proof.  The  evidence  is  no 
less  obvious  with  regard  to  the  history  of  re- 
ligion. Without  the  genius  of  Mohammed 
Islamism  would  certainly  never  have  sprung 
into  existence.  Without  him  the  Arabs 
might  have  for  thousands  of  years  longer 
continued  to  be  steeped  in  idolatry  and 
its  degrading  practices.  Without  Jesus  and 
Paul  there  would  assuredly  be  no  Christi- 


PREFACE.  XI 

anity.  It  is  undeniable  that  Prince  Gautama 
Sakya-muni  was  the  founder  of  Buddhism. 
These  three  great  religions  have  spread  far 
and  wide,  and  have  been  adopted  and  as- 
similated by  nations  which  had  no  share  in 
the  formation  of  their  new  faith.  And  yet 
we  are  told  to  believe  that  Yahvism  came 
into  being  without  the  originating  genius  of 
a  founder,  and  that  the  unique  phenomenon 
of  moral  monotheism  simply  rose  by  spon- 
taneous generation  and  self-development 
from  the  religious  consciousness  of  an  idol- 
atrous and  semi-barbarous  people.  All 
analogies  of  history  compel  us  to  assume, 
that  some  one  man  of  the  rarest  spiritual 
powers  must  have  originated  those  glorious 
religious  ideas  and  moral  ideals  which  even 
the  wonderful  people  of  Hellas  and  its 
wisest  man  did  not  attain  to.  If  it  was  not 
Moses,  then  some  other  man  of  towering 
genius  must  have  been  the  author  of  what 
we  call  Yahvism  or  Mosaism.  Now,  all  the 
memories,  traditions  and  records  of  the 
Hebrew  people  agree  in  regarding  Moses 
ben  Amram  as  the  founder  of  Israel's  re- 


Xll  PREFACE. 

ligion.  The  prophets  of  the  eighth  century 
nowhere  give  the  faintest  hint  that  they  are 
teaching  new  religious  ideas  and  moral  prin- 
ciples. All  their  writings  presuppose  the 
religion  of  Yahvism  as  well  known  and  uni  - 
versally  accepted  as  the  national  religion  of 
Israel.  All  speak  of  it  as  a  faith  established 
from  of  old  by  Moses. 

Many  a  reader  will  doubtless  ask,  "Since 
you  still  hold  fast  to  the  biblical  tradition 
with  regard  to  Moses,  why  do  you  not  go  a 
step  further  in  the  same  direction,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  story  of  the  Bible  trace 
the  origin  of  Yahvism  back  to  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob?"  To  this  objection,  I 
reply :  The  Bible  itself  makes  a  clear  dis- 
tinction between  the  idea  of  God  as  revealed 
by  Moses  and  that  known  to  the  patriarchs. 
"I  appeared  unto  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob 
as  El  Shaddai,  but  by  my  name  Yahve — or 
Jehovah — I  was  not  known  to  them."  In 
the  opinion  of  the  sacred  writer  the  Yahvism 
of  Moses  manifestly  represents  a  higher  re- 
ligion than  was  known  to  the  pious  ances- 
tors. Moreover,  it  will  never  do  to  begin 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

the  history  of  Yahvism  with  the  patriarchs. 
Moses  is  beyond  any  doubt  an  historical 
person.  Even  the  most  iconoclastic  criticism 
has  never  impugned  the  reality  of  his  exist- 
ence and  mission.  Had  we  no  record  at  all 
of  his  life,  we  should  be  constrained  to  postu- 
late that  some  such  man  was  the  founder  of 
Yahvism.  But  the  patriarchs  clearly  belong 
to  the  world  of  legend.  The  belief  in  the 
actual  existence  of  the  father  of  a  whole 
nation  and  even  of  several  nations,  will  not 
stand  the  test  of  rational  inquiry.  The 
patriarchs  are  types  of  piety,  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  religious  and  moral  ideals  of 
Israel.  As  ideals  they  are  immortal  beings, 
and  in  this  sense  all  Israelites  and  Christians 
who  walk  by  the  light  of  the  religion  of 
Moses  are  in  very  deed  the  spiritual  children 
of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob. 

Louisville,  Sept.  6,  1894. 


THE 

RELIGION   OF  MOSES. 


RELIGION  AND  GOVERNMENT  IN 
PAGAN  ANTIQUITY. 

AN  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

OF  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  an- 
cient, medieval  and  modern,  the  American 
people  was  the  first  to  form  a  purely  po- 
litical commonwealth,  to  establish  a  state 
without  an  established  church.  If  it  had 
done  nothing  else  than  to  start  the  move- 
ment toward  a  free  church  in  a  free  state, 
toward  the  total  divorce  of  religion  from 
politics,  it  would  for  this  achievement 
alone  deserve  to  rank  among  the  master- 
builders  of  civilization.  Ck>se  and  in- 
timate relations  between  the  church  and 
the  state — the  maintenance  of  religious 
institutions,  the  support  of  a  priesthood, 
the  supervision  and  regulation  of  the  re- 
ligious beliefs  by  the  state  authorities — 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


have  till  the  rise  of  the  American  repub- 
lic been  the  universal  rule  throughout 
the  world.  The  result  of  this  union 
between  church  and  state  has,  in  most 
respects,  proven  disastrous  to  both  the 
religious  and  the  political  life  of  society. 
By  yoking  together  earthly  powers  and 
spiritual  powers  it  materialized  and  de- 
graded religion,  and  made  the  state  the 
handmaid  of  fanaticism. 

The  marriage  between  religion  and 
government,  which  only  America  has  had 
the  moral  courage  and  wisdom  to  dis- 
solve, was  contracted  in  the  early  days  of 
society,  in  the  days  of  paganism.  Prim- 
itive society  was  in  a  sense  the  offspring 
of  religion.  Both  in  its  foundation  and 
in  every  part  of  its  structure  it  was  made 
up,  if  not  entirely,  at  least  in  a  large 
measure,  of  religious  elements. 

The  primary  unit  of  ancient  society, 
the  family,  had  its  vital  principle  in  re- 
ligious beliefs  and  practices.  It  consisted 
not  only  of  living  human  members,  but 
also  of  the  household  gods  that  were  re- 
garded and  worshiped  as  the  divine  fore- 
fathers of  the  family.  The  latter  were 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


usually  represented  by  rude  images  of 
wood  or  stone.  They  were  believed  to 
take  an  active  and  helpful  interest  in  the 
daily  life  of  their  descendants.  Of  every 
meal  a  portion  of  the  food  and  drink  was 
offered  to  them.  They  were  consulted 
on  every  important  matter.  The  answers 
returned  through  lots  and  other  means 
were  scrupulously  obeyed.  The  family 
was  ever  anxious  to  keep  their  divine 
and  powerful  relations,  dwelling  with 
them  under  the  same  soof,  in  the  best 
possible  humor,  in  order  to  secure  their 
aid  in  all  undertakings.  Most  mishaps 
that  befell  the  house  were  ascribed  to  the 
anger  of  the  household  gods,  who  were 
quick  to  resent  neglect.  The  living  made 
haste  to  appease  their  wrath  by  rich 
offerings  and  humble  apologies. 

Wrongs  committed  by  one  member  of 
the  family  against  another,  especially  dis- 
obedience to  parents,  cowardice  in  defend- 
ing the  life  and  avenging  the  death  of 
kindred,  were  seen  by  the  ever-watchful 
eyes  of  the  divine  inmates  of  the  house, 
and  visited  by  them  with  punishment, 
with  sickness  or  other  plagues.  For  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


gods  and  the  human  members  of  the 
family  were  believed,  in  the  literal  and 
physical  sense  of  the  word,  to  be  of  the 
same  blood.  The  latter  stood  to  the 
former  in  the  relation  of  children  to 
their  fathers.  The  well-being  and  per- 
sonal standing  of  these  gods  were  in- 
volved in  the  prosperity  and  right  con- 
duct of  the  family.  With  the  extinction 
of  the  family,  the  gods  thereof  also  per- 
ished. The  glory  and  power  of  the  family 
exalted  and  magnified  them  also.  It  was 
in  the  strictest  meaning  of  the  word  their 
own  flesh  and  blood  that  they  watched 
over  and  helped  in  good  and  evil  times, 
and  from  whom  they  exacted  obedience 
and  service.  They  loved  and  cared  only 
for  their  immediate  family,  were  indif- 
ferent to  outsiders  and  hostile  to  the  en- 
emies of  their  house.  The  government 
of  the  household  was  carried  on  by  its 
head  under  the  authority  of  and  with 
constant  reference  to  the  wishes  and  com- 
mands of  the  family  gods.  Every  part 
of  conduct  had,  therefore,  what  we  may 
call  a  religious  aspect.  Primitive  man 
was  not,  of  course,  aware  of  the  fact  that 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


he  lived,  moved  and  had  his  being  in  a 
religious  atmosphere.  He  had  not  as  yet 
learned  to  differentiate  between  acts  and 
institutions  of  a  purely  worldly  nature 
and  acts  and  institutions  of  a  sacred 
character,  nor  was  he  able  to  draw  a  line 
of  absolute  separation  between  gods  and 
men.  Parental  authority  and  divine  au- 
thority were  synonymous  terms,  paternal 
government  and  divine  government  were 
interchangeable  ideas.  For  the  household 
gods  were  worshiped  and  obeyed,  because 
they  were  the  disembodied  fathers  or  the 
familiar  spirits,  taking  this  word  in  its 
literal  original  signification.  The  actual 
head  of  the  family  wielded  power  and 
commanded  respect,  because  he  was  the 
living  fountain-head  of  the  blood  common 
to  the  divine  and  the  human  members  of 
the  group.  He  stood  between  the  gods 
and  their  earthly  children.  He  was  in 
very  truth  the  mediator  between  the 
mortals  and  their  divinities,  since  it  was 
through  him  that  the  latter  transmitted 
to  the  former  their  own  blood,  which  was 
regarded  as  the  fountain  and  principle  of 
both  the  physical  and  the  mental  life:  The 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


head  of  the  family  represented  in  his  per- 
son the  powers  and  rights  of  the  family 
gods.  In  their  name  and  in  virtue  of 
their  authority  vested  in  him  he  ruled, 
and  held  in  possession  all  the  individuals 
composing  the  family.  He  alone  made 
offerings,  prayed  to  and  consulted  the 
gods.  The  head  and  ruler  of  the  family 
was  the  priest  of  the  family.  He  dis- 
pensed a  sort  of  rude  justice  in  the  name 
of  and  in  accordance  with  certain  tra- 
ditional rules,  believed  to  have  emanated 
from  the  ancestral  gods.  He  was  priest, 
judge  and  ruler  of  the  family  group. 

The  simplest  and  most  primitive 
kind  of  government,  government  in  its 
initial  stage,  is  thus  seen  to  have  been 
priestly  or  religious  in  its  nature  and 
functions,  to  have  been  vested  with  divine 
authority.  We  are  using  no  metaphor 
and  expressing  no  metaphysical  idea, 
but  are  stating  a  plain  historical  fact 
when  we  say  that  human  society  had  a 
divine  origin  ;  in  other  words,  had  its 
origin  in  religious  beliefs.  But  for  the 
universal  belief  that  gods  and  men  were 
physically  of  the  same  kith  and  kin,  the 


THE    RELIGION    OF    MOSES. 


formation  of  the  permanent  family,  which 
was  the  first  and  most  important  act  in 
the  creation  of  society,  would  perhaps 
not  have  taken  place  at  all.  The  child- 
ren of  every  family,  once  able  to  shift 
for  themselves,  would  probably  have 
broken  off  all  closer  connection  with 
their  parents,  submitting  to  no  authority 
and  acknowledging  no  ties  whatever. 
The  family  would  at  any  rate  not  have 
attained  the  marvelous  vitality,  the  ten- 
acious structural  coherence,  which  caused 
it  to  become  the  mother  of  society,  the 
progenitor  of  nations,  the  parent  of  all 
social  virtues,  the  prototype  of  humanity. 
The  firm  belief  that  the  superior  beings 
upon  whom  they  relied  for  aid  and  pro- 
tection, were  their  own  forefathers,  sup- 
plied men  with  a  principle  of  social 
unity.  All  persons  of  the  same  blood 
must  stay  together,  work  for  one  another 
and  defend  one  another.  For  they  are 
in  a  sense  one  being.  Have  they  not  the 
blood  and  life  of  the  same  divinities  in 
them  ?  Would  not  the  gods  be  angry 
and  punish  their  children,  if  they  were  to 
forsake  or  to  destroy  one  another  ?  The 


THE    RELIGION    OF    MOSES. 


father,  from  whom  they  all  receive  their 
blood,  must  be  obeyed,  because  he  is 
the  medium  through  which  the  gods 
poured  their  stream  of  life  into  the  liv- 
ing generation ! 

The  fact  that  community  of  blood, 
derived  from  kindred  gods,  constituted  a 
bond  of  union  between  kindred  men, 
first  led  to  a  partial  though  exceedingly 
imperfect  recognition  of  the  sacredness 
of  human  life  and  the  wickedness  of 
murder.  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill  thy  blood 
relation,  but  thou  mayest  kill  the  stran- 
ger "  was  good  law  amongst  all  primitive 
races,  as  it  still  is  among  modern  savages. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  shed  the  blood  of  thy 
relative,  because  it  is  the  blood  of  thy 
own  gods  and  they  will  require  his  blood 
at  thy  hand."  We  are  inclined  to  assume 
that  man  came  by  sheer  moral  intuition 
to  look  upon  the  murder  of  any  human 
being  as  a  heinous  crime.  But  in 
reality  primitive  man,  the  savage  of  all 
times  and  lands,  took  special  pride  and 
pleasure  in  killing  as  many  people  as 
possible,  provided  they  were  not  his  kins- 
men. The  only  check  to  his  man-slaying 


THE    RELIGION    OF    MOSES. 


ambition  was  the  fear  of  retaliation. 
The  slaughter  of  strangers  gained  for 
him  the  renown  of  a  valiant  warrior 
among  his  clansmen.  He  was  looked  up 
to  as  the  noblest  of  his  tribe,  and  the 
more  human  heads  a  man  could  show  as 
trophies  of  his  prowess,  the  higher  did 
he  stand  in  his  own  estimation.  Do  not 
the  most  highly  civilized  nations  of  to- 
day in  times  of  war,  slaughter  one 
another  on  the  so-called  field  of  glory  ? 
and  are  not  those  who  succeed  in  destroy- 
ing the  greatest  number  of  their  fellow- 
men,  praised  as  the  flower  of  the  nation 
and  glorified  as  immortal  heroes  ?  While 
the  war  lasts  these  standard-bearers  of 
civilization  cast  aside  the  ethics  of  uni- 
versal humanity  and  feel  and  act  accord- 
ing to  the  moral  code  of  their  savage 
ancestors. 

The  first  and  most  important  step 
toward  regarding  and  punishing  murder 
as  a  crime  was  made,  when  men  came  to 
hold  the  lives  of  their  kinsmen  sacred 
and  inviolable  because  of  their  kinship 
with  the  same  gods.  Murder  in  the 
early  days  of  the  race  meant  only  the 


IO  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

killing  of  a  brother,  of  a  blood  relation. 
But  in  course  of  time  ever  larger  classes 
of  men  came  to  be  included  within  the 
category  of  brother  ;  thus  the  conception 
of  an  impartial  criminal  law,  the  execu- 
tion of  which  forms  an  important  func- 
tion of  the  civilized  state,  manifestly 
originated  in  religious  beliefs,  however 
crude  and  materialistic. 

In  like  manner  robbery  and  theft,  if 
committed  against  strangers,  are  not  con- 
sidered wrongful  acts  by  races  still  in  a 
state  of  savagery  or  lower  barbarism. 
They  are  regarded  as  legitimate  and  even 
praiseworthy  means  of  enriching  one's 
self.  Originally  only  theft  and  robbery 
between  the  members  of  the  same  family 
and  of  the  same  clan  were  viewed  as  evil 
deeds.  Whatever  property  the  family  in 
primitive  times  stood  possessed  of,  was 
not  owned  by  its  individual  members, 
but  belonged  to  the  whole  body  in  its 
collective  capacity,  including  the  family 
gods.  Whoever  robbed  or  stole  from  the 
family,  robbed  and  stole  from  the  gods, 
and  committed  what  we  call  sacrilege. 
Condign  punishment  was  meted  out  to 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  II 

the  robber  and  thief  either  by  the  angry 
deity  himself,  or  by  his  living  represent- 
ative, the  head  of  the  family.  Conse- 
quently this  branch  of  justice,  too,  which 
has  come  to  be  one  of  the  chief  offices 
of  the  state,  was  religious  in  origin  and 
nature,  and  continued  through  countless 
ages  to  be  administered  under  the  au- 
thority and  in  the  name  of  the  gods. 

Marriage,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  was  in  the  early  days  of  society 
everywhere  a  most  important  religious 
act.  The  bride,  being  by  descent  unre- 
lated to  the  husband,  and  therefore  at- 
tached by  no  bond  of  union  to  the  human 
and  divine  members  of  the  family,  was 
first  of  all  solemnly  released  from  alleg- 
iance to  her  own  family  gods.  Then  she 
was  introduced  to  the  household  gods  of 
her  husband,  and  with  prayers  and  ex- 
pressive symbolic  rites  adopted  into  the 
body,  of  which  they  were  the  presiding 
and  guardian  powers.  Every  slave  bought 
or  captured  by  the  family  was  brought  to 
the  seat  of  the  domestic  gods,  and  by  a 
ceremonial  act  delivered  over  to  them  or 
given  into  their  power  or  possession.  No 


12  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

slave  could  be  given  his  liberty  without 
the  will  and  consent  of  the  tutelary  god 
of  the  house.  It  was  by  an  elaborate 
symbolism  that  the  bondman  was  released 
from  the  power  of  his  divine  master.  We 
thus  see  that  religion  and  government 
were,  in  the  primary  social  unit  or  the 
family,  indissolubly  bound  up  together. 
What  has  been  said  on  this  subject 
with  regard  to  the  family,  applies  also 
with  some  modifications  and  amplifica- 
tions to  the  clan  and  the  tribe.  Every 
clan  consisted  of  a  number  of  families, 
held  together  by  the  ties  of  blood  rela- 
tionship, and  every  tribe  was  made  up  of 
a  number  of  clans  believing  themselves 
descended  from  the  same  ancestors.  Every 
clan  had  its  clan  god,  who  was  worshiped 
as  the  father  of  all  the  families  and  all 
the  family  gods.  Every  tribe  had  its 
tribal  god,  who  was  adored  and  obeyed 
as  the  ancestor  and  ruler  of  all  the  clans 
comprised  in  the  tribe.  There  was  an 
hierarchy  of  gods.  The  family  gods  ruled 
within  their  own  domestic  sphere.  The 
clan  gods  bore  sway  within  their  own 
restricted  domain,  extending  over  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  13 

affairs  of  their  respective  clans.  There 
was  an  altar  dedicated  to  the  clan  god. 
The  chief  was  his  priest,  the  interpreter 
of  his  will  and  the  representative  of  his 
power  and  his  interests.  But  high  above 
them  all  in  might,  honor  and  wisdom 
towered  the  tribal  divinity.  He  was  the 
father  and  lord  of  all  the  men  and  all  the 
gods  belonging  to  the  tribe.  Men  and 
gods  were  his  lineal  descendants.  He 
loved  and  cherished  them  as  his  children. 
He  watched  over  them  with  the  solicitude 
and  foresight  of  a  parent.  Whatever 
power  he  possessed  over  the  forces  of  na- 
ture, was  assiduously  used  by  him  in 
furthering  their  prosperity.  He  it  was 
who  increased  their  flocks,  who  made 
their  fields  fruitful  and  multiplied  the 
number  of  their  children.  He  lent  vigor 
to  the  men  and  beauty  to  the  women  of 
the  tribe.  He  rejoiced  to  see  his  child- 
ren prosperous,  and  grieved  in  his  heart 
to  behold  their  misery.  He  was  lord  over 
all  the  territory  occupied  by  the  tribe,  of 
their  fields  and  forests,  their  rivers  and 
lakes,  of  their  hills  and  valleys  and  the 
fullness  thereof.  Their  land  belonged 


14  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

to  him,  and  he  gave  it  to  them  as  a  pos- 
session, as  an  inheritance  forever.  The 
chief  divinity  of  the  tribe  was  the  war- 
god  of  all  the  associated  clans.  War  was 
declared  and  peace  concluded  in  his  name 
and  under  his  supreme  authority.  He 
was  the  leader  of  his  people  in  war.  At 
times  alone,  but  most  frequently  accom- 
panied by  the  clan  divinities  and  the 
family  gods,  he  marched  under  some  ma- 
terial representation  at  the  head  of  his 
hosts  against  his  and  their  enemies.  He 
terrified  them,  smote  them  with  his 
might}-  ann,  and  confounded  the  counsel 
and  power  of  their  gods,  while  his  pres- 
ence inspired  his  own  warriors  with  death- 
defying  courage,  and  impelled  them  to 
perform  deeds  of  valor  in  his  honor. 
His  was  the  victor}-,  his  the  triumph  and 
the  glory.  All  the  territory  that  was  con- 
quered became  his  domain,  all  the  foes 
that  were  subdued  were  either  offered  to 
him  as  a  sacrifice  or  made  his  servants  or 
slaves.  The  tribal  chief  held  supreme 
command  in  the  field,  in  virtue  of  the 
authority  of  the  tribal  divinity  with  which 
he  was  invested.  Disobedience  to  the 


THE    RELIGION   OF    MOSES.  15 

orders  of  the  war-chief  was  punished  as 
rebellion  against  the  divine  war-lord. 

To  fight  against  all  nnallied  tribes 
was  not  simply  a  matter  of  self-preserva- 
tion and  self-aggrandizement,  but  a  sacred 
duty,  a  religious  obligation.  All  strangers 
and  their  divinities  were  the  natural 
enemies  of  the  tribal  divinities.  To  as- 
sail and  crush  them  meant  to  overthrow 
the  adversaries  of  the  tribal  deity,  to 
extend  his  dominion,  and  magnify  his 
power.  Thus  war  and  conquest,  which 
were  the  chief  occupations  of  primitive 
societies  and  the  main  business  of  their 
government,  were  carried  on  under  the 
directing  influence  of  religious  motives. 
Every  war  was  a  sacred  war.  Every  war 
was  waged  by  the  tribal  god  and  his 
children  against  alien  tribes,  commanded 
by  hostile  divinities.  The  religious  char- 
acter of  ancient  warfare  largely  explains 
its  ruthless  cruelty.  Men  already  fero- 
cious by  nature  were  excited  to  a  pitch 
of  frenzied  hatred,  in  the  belief  that  they 
were  tormenting  and  destroying  the  per- 
sonal and  abhorred  adversaries  of  their 
2fod. 


1 6  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

They  hoped  to  be  rewarded  by  their 
god  for  wreaking  merciless  vengeance  on 
his  foes  and  annihilating  the  worshipers 
and  warriors  of  his  divine  antagonists. 
Long  after  advancing  civilization  had 
begun  to  refine  the  manners  and  soften 
the  hearts  of  men,  the  tra'ditional  relig- 
ious ideas  continued  to  enforce  the  rules 
of  savage  warfare.  Down  to  a  very  late 
date  in  history,  down  to  the  baneful 
Thirty  Years'  War,  all  so-called  sacred 
wars,  all  wars  waged  in  the  name  of  God 
and  religion,  were  marked  by  horrible 
inhumanity.  Whenever  men  imagine 
themselves  to  be  fighting  for  the  interest 
of  Deity,  the  mere  human  interests  must 
in  their  eyes  dwindle  into  insignificance, 
and  the  voice  of  compassion  be  hushed 
before  the  stern  command  of  their  divine 
master.  The  idea  of  doing  battle  for 
one's  God  and  helping  him  against  his 
enemies,  is  under  every  theological  dis- 
guise essentially  a  pagan  belief,  and  like 
all  heathenish  notions,  thoroughly  mis- 
chievous. 

Yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  in  the 
early  days  of  mankind,  this  belief 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  17 

greatly  helped  to  organize  society,  and 
induce  men,  in  spite  of  their  intense  love 
for  personal  independence,  to  submit  to 
some  sort  of  governmental  authority.  In 
times  of  war — and  early  society  lived  in 
an  almost  perpetual  state  of  war — the 
fear  and  love  of  the  tribal  god  and  father 
determined  men  to  combine  their  forces 
and  yield  implicit  obedience  to  the  tribal 
chief,  who  acts  in  accordance  with  com- 
mands which  he  is  believed  to  receive 
from  the  divine  war-lord.  The  spirit  of 
discipline  and  subordination  was  fostered 
by  the  belief  that  in  obeying  the  orders 
of  the  chief  they  were  carrying  out  the 
behests  of  their  god  and  master.  Savage 
natures,  ordinarily  swayed  by  fierce  ego- 
tistical instincts,  were  led  by  religious 
influences  to  serve  with  all  their  might 
the  general  good  and  to  sacrifice  their 
own  lives  for  their  tribe.  Religion  was  the 
mother  of  heroism.  Before  any  other 
humanizing  and  organizing  power  came 
into  play,  religious  ideas  nursed  all  the 
stalwart  civic  virtues  into  vigorous  life. 
Whenever  and  wherever  several  tribes 
coalesced  to  form  a  people,  powerful 


1 8  THE   RELIGION  OF   MOSES. 

religious  motives  were  present,  among 
other  causes,  to  bring  about  the  union, 
and  continued  to  be  active  in  preserving 
and  cementing  that  union.  To  the 
ancient  mind  a  commonwealth  without 
common  gods  and  a  common  cult  was 
unthinkable.  For  what  constituted  in 
the  eyes  of  the  ancients  a  people  or  a 
nation?  First  of  all  it  was  a  real  or 
imaginary  community  of  descent.  Com- 
munity of  language  was  falsely  taken,  as 
it  still  is  to-day,  as  proof  of  close  relation- 
ship. Blood  relationship  was  the  only 
source  of  sympathy  and  the  only  bond 
of  union  among  men.  For  this  reason 
all  the  tribes  that  composed  a  nation 
traced  their  pedigree  back  to  a  common 
ancestor.  Thus,  mythical  forefathers 
supplied  the  necessary  tie  to  bind  all  the 
clans  and  tribes  together,  and  make  of 
them  all  one  large  family.  But  every 
kind  of  family,  be  it  a  simple  household, 
a  clan,  a  tribe  or  a  people,  formed  a  fam- 
ily only  by  virtue  of  the  belief,  that  all 
its  members  were  children  and  worship- 
ers of  the  same  divinity.  Without  a 
national  god,  who  was  the  father  of  gods 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  19 

and  of  men  and  their  supreme  ruler,  a 
society  lacked  the  unifying  principle. 
It  simply  had  no  reason  for  existence. 
Without  a  national  divinity  a  people  felt 
itself  absolutely  powerless  to  cope  with 
its  enemies. 

The  divine  over-lord  was  the  sole 
owner  of  the  land  which  a  nation  oc- 
cupied or  conquered.  Without  him  a 
people  had  no  title  to  the  territory  which 
it  possessed.  From  him  the  king  derived 
his  authority  to  command  the  national 
forces  in  the  field,  to  act  as  supreme  judge 
and  officiate  as  high  priest.  The  king  was 
the  living  representative  and  vicegerent 
of  the  national  god.  He  was  the  medi- 
ator between  the  people  and  their  god, 
ruler  and  father.  He  sat  in  the  seat  of 
judgment  and  dispensed  justice  in  the 
name  and  by  the  reflected  majesty  of  the 
nation's  supreme  judge.  He  was  ex- 
pected to  vindicate  the  right  of  the  poor 
against  the  powerful  and  to  protect  the 
weak  against  the  strong,  because  he  rep- 
resented the  protector  and  judge  of  the 
whole  people.  The  laws  by  which  he 
and  his  delegates  judged  were  sacred  laws. 


2O  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

All  the  nations  of  the  earth  regarded 
their  traditional  customs  and  laws  as 
divinely  communicated.  By  dint  of  their 
belief  in  the  divine  origin  of  their  laws 
men  came  by  the  all-important  idea  that 
certain  fixed  rules  for  the  guidance  of 
life  were  absolutely  binding  on  all  the 
members  of  the  community.  This  soul- 
conquering  belief  imparted  to  the  laws 
their  inviolable  authority,  and  prevented 
the  wills,  passions  and  personal  interests 
of  untutored  natures  from  brushing  aside 
and  casting  to  the  winds  all  the  estab- 
lished ordinances  of  justice  and  equity. 
The  chief  prerogative  of  the  king's 
office  consisted  in  being  the  high  priest 
of  the  whole  nation.  All  the  temples, 
which  were  dedicated  to  the  national  god, 
were  the  king's  sanctuaries.  The  cult  or 
the  offering  of  sacrifices  at  stated  times 
and  the  chanting  of  hymns  were  regarded 
as  the  chief  business  of  the  whole  people. 
For  on  them  depended  the  nation's  pros- 
perity, which  was  won  or  lost  with  the 
favor  or  disfavor  of  the  national  divinity. 
The  cult  was  the  visible  bond  of  union 
between  the  people  and  their  god  and  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  21 

perpetual  manifestation  of  their  allegiance 
and  gratitude.  States  which  abolished  the 
kingly  office,  such  as  Athens  and  Rome, 
continued  to  elect  a  sacrificial  king,  in 
order  not  to  arouse  the  anger  of  the  deity 
by  depriving  him  of  his  wonted  royal 
minister. 

There  was  not  an  element  in  the  life 
of  the  state  which  was  not  saturated  with 
religion.  Nothing  great  or  new  was  un- 
dertaken in  peace  or  war  without  first 
inquiring  of  the  gods  and  ascertaining 
their  will  by  means  of  auguries  or  oracles. 
The  state  rested  on  the  broad  basis  of 
religion,  and  every  part  of  it,  from  foun- 
dation to  copestone,  was  made  up  of  ma- 
terials furnished  or  shaped  by  religion. 
Every  ancient  state  was  a  church,  if  we 
may  use  the  term  church  in  regard  to 
times  when  such  a  conception  as  a  church 
distinct  from  the  state  was  still  incon- 
ceivable. There  was  in  one  respect  a 
wonderful  and  wholesome  oneness  in  life 
in  those  ancient  states.  Affairs  divine 
and  human,  things  spiritual  and  worldly 
were  inextricably  interwoven.  Public  in- 
terests were  synonymous  with  divine  in- 


22  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

terests,  and  he  who  served  his  country 
and  his  people  best,  knew  himself  to  be 
literally  serving  his  god. 

But  there  was  also  another  and  evil 
side  to  the  all-embracing,  all-sustaining 
and  all-determining  religious  character  of 
the  ancient  commonwealths.  Any  great 
change,  brought  on  by  the  conquest  and 
accretion  of  alien  tribes  or  by  loss  of 
independence,  hopelessly  disturbed  the 
equilibrium  between  religious  and  polit- 
ical life,  and  destroyed  the  vital  principle 
of  the  national  existence.  A  people  that 
was  subjugated  and  lost  its  independence, 
virtually  ceased  to  have  a  religion,  be- 
cause it  ceased  to  believe  in  its  own  na- 
tional god.  A  god  who  proved  himself 
unable  to  protect  his  own  people,  a  god 
who  showed  himself  too  powerless  or  too 
cowardly  to  overcome  his  own  and  his 
nation's  enemies,  lost  all  claims  to  the 
allegiance  of  his  worshipers.  Who  was 
he,  that  they  should  further  serve  him  ? 
What  good  would  it  do  them  to  worship 
him?  He  was  a  vanquished  potentate, 
to  offer  prayers  and  sacrifices  to  whom 
would  be  a  waste  of  substance  and  breath. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  23 

Nor  could  the  conquered  turn  to  the  gods 
of  the  conqueror.  For  these  were  strange 
gods,  who  in  their  hatred  had  crushed 
them  with  a  mighty  arm.  The  con- 
quests of  the  great  conquering  nations 
were  victories  not  only  over  the  bodies, 
but  also  over  the  souls  of  the  vanquished. 
Frightful  spiritual  havoc  was  wrought  in 
the  souls  of  the  nations  overcome  by 
Assyrians,  Babylonians,  Persians  and 
Romans.  Their  religion  sank  to  the 
level  of  a  mere  superstition.  But  the 
essence  of  their  religion,  sincere  and  in- 
tense faith  in  a  presiding  and  guiding 
national  divinity,  was  destroyed  forever. 
What  demoralization  the  downfall  of  the 
national  faith  brought  with  it,  it  is  im- 
possible to  describe.  The  primeval  foun- 
dations of  morality  were  shaken  or  re- 
moved. For  how  should  people  who  were 
accustomed  to  obey  the  laws,  moral  and 
civil,  solely  because  they  were  com- 
manded by  their  national  god,  continue 
to  regard  them  as  binding,  after  they  had 
ceased  to  believe  in  and  pay  homage  to 
their  god  ?  What  remained  of  morality 
was  either  a  matter  of  mere  blind  habit,  or 


24  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

was  enforced  by  the  political  authori- 
ties. Nor  did  the  conquering  nations  fare 
much  better.  Their  empires  lacked  the 
principle  of  vital  unity.  Their  common- 
wealth being  identified  with  kinship, 
alien  peoples  were  attached  to  it  by  mere 
brute  force  but  by  no  organic  ties.  There 
was  no  unifying  and  integrating  power  to 
bind  them  ;  they  were  mere  agglomera- 
tions of  discordant  elements.  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  tried  to  give  his  empire  that 
organic  unity  by  compelling  all  the  sub- 
ject nations  to  worship  the  Olympian  Jove 
v  as  their  supreme  deity.  The  heroism  of 
the  Jews  caused  that  madman's  attempt 
to  fail  ignoniiniously.  The  Roman  em- 
pire was  a  graveyard  of  nations  and  na- 
tional divinities,  though  the  Romans 
partly  succeeded  in  making  the  worship 
of  the  living  emperor  a  sort  of  state  re- 
ligion. In  every  province,  city  and  town 
temples  were  erected  to  the  genius  of  the 
deified  emperor,  and  a  numerous  priest- 
hood offered  daily  incense  and  sacrifices 
on  his  altars.  Students  of  history  are 
amazed  at  what  seems  a  blasphemous 
mockery  of  religion.  Yet,  for  several 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  25 

centuries  the  worship  of  the  emperors 
was  the  most  widespread  and  the  most 
genuine  religion  extant  in  the  Roman 
empire.  To  such  a  pass  of  moral  degra- 
dation and  religious  perversion  was  the 
pagan  world  brought,  that  two  hundred 
million  beings  worshiped  monsters  like 
Caligula,  Nero  and  Domitian  as  the  high- 
est incarnation  of  the  divine  powers. 
Only  the  death-defying  courage  of  the 
Israelites,  the  worshipers  of  Yahve,  the 
Father  and  God  of  all  men,  offered  an 
uncompromising  and  deadly  resistance  to 
this  travesty  of  religion  to  which  bank- 
rupt paganism  had  been  reduced.  At 
last  the  spirit  of  Israel,  modified  as 
Christianity,  appeared  upon  the  scene 
and  opened  a  new  epoch  in  the  relations 
between  religion  and  government,  state 
and  church. 


I. 

YAHVISM    NOT  A  NATURE 
RELIGION. 

THE  appearance  of  Yahvism  in  the 
world  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  and 
brighter  era  in  the  religious  and  moral 
life  of  humanity.  It  introduces  hitherto 
unknown  ideal  forces  into  the  relations 
between  religion  and  government.  From 
the  very  day  of  its  birth  Yahvism  was 
in  origin,  nature  and  tendency  different 
from  all  other  tribal  and  national  relig- 
ions. The  religious  systems  of  all  other 
peoples  grew  and  developed  by  a  spon- 
taneous or  purely  natural  process.  The 
nature  religions  were,  one  and  all,  the 
natural  products  of  the  popular  mind  as 
much  as  language,  manners,  customs,  the 
simple  arts  of  life  and  the  rudimentary 
forms  of  social  order  and  political  organ- 
ization. They  were  the  all  but  neces- 
sary results  of  man's  intercourse  with  the 
universe,  the  outcome  of  his  helpless  con- 
dition in  the  midst  of  nature,  yet  unde- 
veloped and  unconquered,  the  offspring 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  27 

of  his  desire  to  understand  and  propitiate 
the  beings  and  powers  surrounding  him. 
But  Yahvism  never  was  a  nature  re- 
ligion, however  imperfect  we  may  imag- 
ine its  beginnings  to  have  been.  It  did 
not  spontaneously  spring  from  the  heart 
and  mind  of  a  tribe  or  people.  The  re- 
ligion of  Israel  had  its  birthplace  in  the 
soul  of  one  man  of  supreme  genius.  Its 
cardinal  religious  ideas  and  leading  moral 
principles  were  conceived  by  Moses  ben 
Amram  after  years  of  profound  medita- 
tion and  mysterious  communion  with  the 
Eternal  and  Infinite,  and  by  him  com- 
municated to  the  Israeli tish  and  non- 
Israelitish  tribes,  which  he  had  delivered 
from  the  bondage  of  Egypt.  Too  much 
stress  cannot  be  laid  on  this  fact.  It 
alone  furnishes  the  key  to  at  least  a 
partial  understanding  of  the  rise  of  moral 
monotheism  in  Israel,  a  phenomenon  to 
which  the  religious  history  of  no  other 
ancient  people  offers  a  parallel.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is  there  was  no 
people  of  Israel  and  no  religion  of  Israel 
before  Moses.  The  creative  genius  of  the 
greatest  of  prophets  and  legislators  fash- 


28  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ioned  a  new  people  out  of  a  number  of 
enslaved  Semitic  and  non-Semitic  clans 
by  giving  them  a  new,  elevating  re- 
ligion. 

He  converted  them  from  their  grovel- 
ling idolatry  and  debasing  superstitions 
to  his  own  faith  in  Yahve,  the  just,  right- 
eous and  holy  God.  He  taught  them  to 
believe  in  Yahve,  who  hates  and  crushes 
the  wicked,  but  pities  and  protects  the 
poor  and  downtrodden.  Yahvistn  is  a 
revealed  religion,  while  all  forms  of  pagan- 
ism are  natural  religions.  This  belief, 
held  alike  by  the  Israelites,  Christians 
and  Mohammedans,  is  true  in  a  far  deeper 
sense  than  uncritical  minds,  believers  in 
mechanical  inspiration,  imagine.  It  was 
revealed  by  the  individual  mind  that 
towered  above  the  intelligence  of  average 
humanity,  as  Pike's  Peak  rises  above  the 
dead  level  of  the  neighboring  desert.  As 
the  pictures  of  Rafael  and  Murillo  are 
superior  to  the  daubs  of  village  painters  ; 
as  the  statues  of  Phidias  and  Michael 
Angelo  surpass  the  hideous  figures  carved 
or  sculptured  by  Aztecs  or  Africans  ;  as 
the  divine  music  of  Beethoven  and  Mo- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  29 

zart  excels  the  simple  tunes  of  the  people  ; 
as  the  mind  of  a  Newton  exceeds  in  power 
the  mathematical  faculty  of  the  average 
man  ;  as  the  epics  of  Homer  and  the 
tragedies  of  Shakspere  overtop  the  pro- 
ductions of  mediocre  poets  ;  even  so  do 
the  moral  teachings  and  the  religious 
ideas  of  Moses  transcend  in  originality 
and  sublimity  of  conception  the  fantastic 
cosmogonies,  theogonies  and  ethics  of  the 
heathen  nations. 

Men  of  the  highest  genius  form,  as  it 
were,  a  genus  of  humanity  by  themselves. 
We  look  up  to  them  with  awe  and  wor- 
shipful reverence.  We  rejoice  in  their 
greatness,  and  glory  in  their  marvelous 
achievements.  We  derive  inspiration  and 
guidance  from  their  immortal  words  and 
deeds.  But  we  know  ourselves  to  be  mere 
dwarfs,  that  reach  barely  up  to  the  knees 
of  those  intellectual  and  moral  giants. 
These  superior  intelligences  rise  above 
the  limitations  and  weaknesses  of  their 
time,  above  the  traditional  beliefs  and  an- 
cestral superstitions,  above  the  inherited 
loves  and  hates  of  their  kindred  and  land, 
and  soar  on  the  wings  of  original  power 


30  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

into  unknown  and  undreamed  of  regions 
of  thought.  They  cast  aside  the  dim 
glass  of  tradition,  and  with  clear  and 
illumined  eyes  look  into  the  heart  of 
things.  Mouth  to  mouth  the  Infinite 
speaks  to  them,  even  manifestly  and  not 
in  dark  speeches.  They  behold  the  form 
of  the  Eternal  incarnate  in  nature  and  in 
the  life  of  mortal  man.  One  or  two  such 
men  appear  in  a  thousand  or  two  thou- 
sand years  as  new-born  suns  in  the  skies 
of  humanity.  Their  shining  lives,  their 
creative  thoughts  and  deeds  are  sown  as 
healing  and  redeeming  light  to  their  own 
time  and  generation.  Their  richest  bless- 
ings, however,  ripen  late,  to  be  reaped  by 
far  off  ages. 

One  such  man  of  surpassing  intel- 
lectual and  moral  genius  was  Moses,  the 
founder  of  Yahvism,  and  the  creator  of 
the  people  of  Israel.  The  mainspring 
and  impelling  motive  of  his  epoch-mak- 
ing prophetic,  legislative  and  political 
activity  was  infinite  pity  for  the  op- 
pressed clans  of  various  races,  whose 
brutalizing  misery  he  had  for  years  wit- 
nessed in  Egypt.  His  great  heart  bled 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  31 

for  the  innocent  victims  of  a  ruthless 
tyranny.  His  compassionate  soul  burned 
with  righteous  indignation  against  the 
inhuman  despots  and  their  minions,  who 
degraded  human  beings  to  the  level  of 
beasts  of  burden.  The  sight  of  helpless 
people  trodden  under  foot  as  aliens  in  the 
name  of  religion,  kindled  in  his  breast 
unquenchable  wrath  against  the  religious 
and  political  system  of  Egypt  and  its 
merciless  representatives.  It  was  in  the 
land .  of  Egypt  that  he '  knew  so  well, 
which  he  had  for  years  observed  from  the 
high  eminence  of  his  princely  station, 
that  the  pagan  theory  basing  all  social- 
rights  exclusively  on  kinship  was  carried 
to  its  utmost  baleful  consequences.  The 
nation  was  broken  up  into  a  number  of 
castes.  Each  caste  traced  its  pedigree 
back  to  a  different  ancestry,  and  derived 
its  descent  from  a  different  god.  The 
castes  were  separated  from  one  another 
by  an  impassable  legal,  religious  and  social 
gulf.  The  toiling  masses,  the  tillers  of  the 
soil,  the  mechanics  and  day  laborers  \vere 
ground  to  dust  by  crushing  taxes  on  their 
personal  labor  and  income.  Divine  hon- 


32  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ors  were  paid  to  many  species  of  animals, 
because  they  were  believed  to  be  incar- 
nations or  the  offspring  of  the  great  gods. 
But  the  common  people  were  held  in 
utmost  contempt,  for  the  reason  that  they 
could  not  claim  kinship  with  the  divine 
ancestors  of  the  higher  castes. 

The  upper  castes  were  regarded  as  the 
offspring  of  the  greater  gods.  By  virtue 
of  that  belief  they  held  the  lower  classes 
in  subjection,  remorselessly  abusing  and 
maltreating  them.  The  king  was  be- 
lieved to  be  not  only  a  lineal  descendant, 
but  also  a  living  incarnation  of  the  sun- 
god  Osiris.  By  that  title  he  had  absolute 
power  over  the  life  and  property  of  all 
his  subjects.  In  theory,  and  largely  also 
in  practice,  all  Egyptians  were  slaves  of 
the  god-king.  The  Pharaoh  was  the  sole 
rightful  owner  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt 
and  of  all  they  contained.  But  infinitely 
beneath  the  very  lowest  and  most  despised 
native  caste  there  ranked  in  Egypt  the 
strangers  who  had  voluntarily  or  as 
prisoners  of  war  taken  up  their  abode 
within  the  confines  of  the  empire.  They 
were  abhorred  far  more  than  unclean 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  33 

animals.  They  were  looked  upon  and 
detested  >as  the  children  and  servants  of 
Seth,  the  Egyptian  devil.  Their  touch 
was  believed  to  pollute,  their  breath  to 
defile  the  native. 

In  the  long  course  of  Egyptian  history 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  land  was  for 
several  hundred  years  under  the  dominion 
of  an  alien  race  of  invaders.  During  that 
period  some  foreigners  rose  to  dignity  and 
power  by  sheer  force  of  character  and  ex- 
traordinary wisdom.  At  such  times  na- 
tives and  foreigners  even  intermarried 
and  gave  birth  to  a  mixed  population. 
It  was  at  such  an  epoch  of  foreign  dom- 
ination, while  Egyptian  exclusiveness, 
while  national  and  religious  fanaticism 
were  exposed  to  dissolving  influences  that 
the  Hebrews  settled  in  the  land  of  the 
Nile;  more  especially  the  Josephide  tribes 
of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  grew  and  mul- 
tiplied exceedingly  by  absorbing  large 
indigenous  elements  through  intermar- 
riage. But  as  soon  as  the  natives  had 
succeeded  in  regaining  the  supremacy, 
the  old  Egyptian  spirit  of  racial  pride 
and  hatred  reasserted  itself  with  a  thou- 


34  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

sandfold  intensified  force.  All  the  alien 
tribes,  though  they  had  lived  for  centuries 
in  the  land  and  had  by  their  useful  labor 
and  loyal  activity  contributed  much  to- 
ward the  wealth  and  greatness  of  the 
kingdom,  were  placed  outside  the  pale  of 
human  rights  and  subjected  to  the  most 
outrageous  treatment.  It  was  especially 
against  the  Hebrews,  who  seem  to  have 
once  played  an  important  part  in  Egyp- 
tian history,  that  their  brutal  national 
and  religious  reaction  was  turned.  They 
were  literally  outlawed  and  by  a  decree 
of  the  king  declared  to  be  the  slaves  of 
the  state.  Their  lives  were  made  bitter 
with  hard  service  in  mortar  and  in  brick 
and  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the  field. 
The  taskmasters  set  over  them  afflicted 
them  with  burdens  beyond  human  endur- 
ance. Ever  new  inhuman  devices  were 
invented  in  order  to  crush  their  spirit  and 
to  stifle  every  desire  to  regain  their  free- 
dom. When  the  ruthless  despots  saw 
that  the  oppressed  continued  to  multiply 
and  to  spread  abroad  in  spite  of  their 
afflictions,  they  conceived  the  horrible 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  35 

plan  of  exterminating  them  by  killing 
all  new-born  males. 

The  religion  of  Egypt  did  not  raise 
her  voice  against  these  deeds  of  horror. 
The  priests  of  the  greater  and  lesser  gods 
looked  on  unmoved,  while  infants  were 
being  torn  from  the  arms  of  their  shriek- 
ing mothers  and  drowned  before  the  eyes 
of  their  miserable  fathers.  They  felt  no 
compassion  for  the  hapless  aliens  driven 
in  chain  gangs  to  the  quarries,  where  they 
died  by  thousands  of  hunger  and  thirst, 
of  heat  and  overwork  and  cruel  floggings. 
Why  should  they  ?  The  victims  were 
not  the  children  of  any  Egyptian  tribal 
or  national  god,  nor  did  they  live  under 
their  protection.  Being  unrelated  to  the 
gods  of  the  land  and  to  their  human 
descendants,  they  were,  in  the  most  literal 
sense,  outcasts  and  outlaws.  They  had 
no  basis  of  right  to  stand  on.  They  had 
no  title  to  their  bodies,  their  souls  and 
their  labor.  They  possessed  fewer  rights 
than  animals. 

On  the  contrary,  most  animals  were 
held  sacred  and  inviolable.  The  death 


36  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

penalty  was  ineted  out  to  whoever  killed 
a  cat  or  certain  other  beasts.  The  reason 
is  not  far  to  seek.  Those  beasts  were  be- 
lieved to  be  the  offspring  or  the  living 
incarnations  of  diverse  divinities.  The 
gods  themselves,  even  the  greatest  and 
mightiest,  were  conceived  of  by  their  wor- 
shipers in  the  forms  of  beasts  and  birds. 
They  were  largely  endowed  with  the 
qualities  and  passions  of  the  animals 
which  were  their  emblems.  They  but 
represented  the  powers  and  phenomena 
of  unmoral  nature.  Nature's  mode  of 
action,  her  ways  of  self-manifestation, 
her  utter  indifference  to  good  and  evil, 
seemed  to  them  to  resemble  far  more  the 
instinctive  behavior  of  animals  than  the 
rational  conduct  of  human  beings.  In 
the  rumbling  or  roaring  thunder,  in  the 
terrific  noises  of  the  raging  sea,  in  the 
howling  of  the  furious  tempest  they 
seemed  to  hear  the  bellowing  of  heavenly 
bulls,  the  roar  of  celestial  lions,  the  bark 
of  jackal  gods,  and  the  hissing  of  divine 
serpents.  Thus,  according  to  the  Egyp- 
tian theology,  the  earth  was  governed  by 
beast-like  divinities.  The  priests  on  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  37 

banks  of  the  Nile  carried  the  pagan  the- 
ory of  divine  government  to  its  last  log- 
ical conclusions.  The  worship  of  external 
nature,  of  her  powers  and  material  phe- 
nomena must  needs  lead  men  to  the  ador- 
ation of  gods,  that  after  the  manner  of 
the  beasts  of  the  fields  and  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  act  in  obedience  to  natural  im- 
pulses and  desires,  having  no  regard  to 
moral  good  and  evil.  In  later  ages  phil- 
osophers tried  to  humanize  the  gods,  to 
represent  them  as  types  of  humanity. 
Yet  they  succeeded  but  poorly  in  their 
effort. 

On  the  whole,  the  religion  of  Moses' 
contemporaries  in  Egypt  tended  to  make 
men  sensual,  selfish,  base  and  inhumanly 
cruel  toward  alien  races.  As  are  a  people's 
gods,  such  will  their  worshipers  be.  The 
adoration  of  beast-like  divinities  could 
not  but  render  bestial  the  men  who  served 
and  venerated  them.  It  was  not  a  relig- 
ion whose  chief  aim  was  to  teach  justice, 
to  inculcate  mercy  and  enforce  the  equi- 
ties of  humanity.  It  did  not  quicken 
and  develop  the  highest  moral  capabili- 
ties of  man  by  placing  before  him  the 


38  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

inspiring  ideal  of  divine  perfection.  Like 
all  other  heathen  religions,  it  was  a  crude 
and  fantastic  theory  of  nature,  a  vain  and 
wearisome  attempt  to  explain  the  mystery 
of  universal  life  and  the  existence  of  the 
soul  here  and  hereafter  by  means  of  cer- 
tain pantheistic  ideas,  through  the  belief 
in  divine  incarnations  and  the  migration 
of  souls.  The  priests  brooded  over  the 
insoluble  problems  of  nature,  and  tried 
to  penetrate,  by  means  of  mythological 
conceptions,  to  the  hidden  causes  of  her 
phenomena.  They  endeavored  to  piece 
together  all  the  various  Egyptian  trin- 
ities, all  the  beast-gods,  the  bird-gods  and 
fish-gods  into  one  coherent  system.  They 
built  stupendous  temples,  organized  a 
costly  and  imposing  sacrificial  service  on 
a  grand  scale,  elaborated  endless  litanies 
and  rituals,  while  living  without  care  or 
labor  on  the  fat  of  the  land.  But  they 
did  not  concern  themselves  with  the  un- 
speakable misery  and  moral  degradation 
of  the  lower  classes.  They  had  no  word 
of  protest  against  the  grinding  and  brut- 
alizing despotism  of  the  kings,  as  long 
as  they  were  left  undisturbed  in  the  en- 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  39 

joyment  of  their  privileges  and  vast  in- 
comes. They  had  no  bowels  of  compas- 
sion for  the  myriads  of  tortured  wretches, 
who,  like  the  Hebrews  and  other  enslaved 
strangers,  were  driven  by  the  lash  of  over- 
seers to  perform  impossible  tasks,  and 
were  daily  outraged  in  the  sanctities  of 
their  homes,  and  trodden  underfoot  like 
worms. 

Even  the  intense  belief  of  the  Egyp- 
tians in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  helped 
to  make  them  the  more  selfish  and  the 
more  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  the 
poor  and  stranger.  The  Egyptian  knew 
that  he  had  an  eternity  to  live  beyond  the 
grave,  that  even  his  body,  if  properly 
embalmed  and  inhumed,  would  be  one 
day  re-entered  by  his  returning  soul, 
and  rise  to  live  again  on  earth. 

Thus  the  individual  was  above  all 
things  anxious  to  secure  for  himself  a 
safe  passage  to  the  underworld,  and  to 
procure  a  pleasant  abode  among  the 
happy  ones  in  Amenti,  in  Deadman's 
Land.  This  consummation  so  devoutly 
wished  for  by  all  high-caste  Egyptians, 
was  brought  about  by  mystic  formulas, 


40  THE    RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 

and  magical  rites  and  incantations,  by 
funeral  sacrifices  and  pomps,  by  rich  gifts 
to  the  temples,  by  large  fees  to  the  priests, 
who  chanted  demon-compelling  hymns 
and  recited  potent  charms,  in  order  to 
insure  bliss  and  salvation  to  the  departed 
rich  and  mighty.  The  prospect  of  per- 
sonal immortality  and  everlasting  bliss, 
which  was  mainly  attained  by  virtue  of 
priestly  intercession  and  sorcery,  strength- 
ened in  the  individual  the  instincts  of 
self-love,  and  weakened  the  altruistic  feel- 
ings of  sympathy  and  compassion  for  his 
suffering  fellowmen.  True,  in  the  later 
and  higher  stages  of  social  development 
the  ethical  ideas  entered  largely  into  the 
Egyptian  conception  of  retribution  be- 
yond the  tomb.  The  dead  was  believed 
to  appear  before  Osiris  and  the  forty-two 
judges  in  Amenti,  and  to  declare  that  he 
had  done  no  wrong  whatever  on  earth. 
But  the  rich  and  mighty  knew  also  that 
they  could  buy  from  the  priests  absolu- 
tion from  their  sins,  and  through  their 
mighty  influence  with  the  gods  gain  an 
entrance  to  the  bright  heaven  in  the  sun. 
The  upper  classes  were  pretty  sure  of 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  41 

their  own  salvation,  as  long  as  they  stood 
well  with  the  priests.  This  belief  gave 
to  the  crafty  priesthood  a  most  powerful 
hold  on  the  minds  of  men.  Even  the 
wisest  shrank  in  terror  from  the  thought 
of  disobeying  their  commands  and  depart- 
ing from  their  savage  superstitions.  The 
belief  in  immortality  was  used  unscrupu- 
lously by  the  priesthood  for  their  profes- 
sional ends,  to  gain  wealth  and  power  for 
their  own  caste,  to  stop  intellectual  and 
social  progress  beyond  the  barriers  of 
their  consecrated  system.  On  the  banks 
of  the  river  of  death  the  Egyptian  priests 
stood  for  ages,  to  bar  the  passage  to  all 
poor  souls  who  could  not  satisfy  their 
demands  for  ceremonies,  formulas  and 
fees. 


II. 

I  AM  THAT  I  AM. 

IT  was  in  the  inidst  of  such  sur- 
roundings that  the  great  deliverer  ap- 
peared, whose  providential  mission  it 
was  to  start  mankind  on  a  new  career  of 
religious,  moral  and  social  development. 
He  inaugurated  a  spiritual  revolution 
which  in  the  course  of  ages  was  to 
wrench  the  best  part  of  mankind  from  its 
pagan  moorings,  to  transform  the  inner- 
most thoughts  of  men,  and  recast  all  relig- 
ious and  social  institutions  in  a  new  ideal 
mold.  The  religion  of  righteousness  and 
mercy  originated  in  Moses'  death-defying 
compassion  for  the  weak  and  oppressed, 
in  his  unquenchable  hatred  of  wrong,  in 
his  boundless  love  of  justice.  All  the 
love  and  mercy  of  which  the  soul  of  hu- 
manity is  capable,  stirred  in  the  tender 
yet  mighty  soul  of  Israel's  redeemer. 
The  heart  of  infinite  existence  mani- 
fested all  its  hidden  wealth  and  power  of 
loving-kindness  through  the  heart  of  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  43 

prophet  of  righteousness.  In  him  the 
aspiring  genius  of  humanity,  reaching  out 
for  higher  and  better  things,  revolted  with 
horror  and  indignation  from  the  relig- 
ious, social  and  political  system  of  Egypt. 
For  it  was  in  the  name  of  pitiless  and  par- 
tial gods  that  the  ruling  castes  of  Egypt 
enslaved  and  degraded  the  toiling  masses. 
In  a  moment  of  righteous  and  irre- 
pressible anger  Moses  avenged  with  his 
own  strong  arm  the  cruel  wrong  done  to 
one  of  the  outcast  strangers.  The  die 
was  cast!  The  man  of  destiny  had  to 
flee  for  his  life  and  seek  a  refuge  in  the 
neighboring  desert  among  the  poor  but 
hospitable  and  free  nomads.  For  many 
years  the  future  shepherd  of  men  led  the 
life  of  a  shepherd  in  the  solemn  solitude 
of  the  wilderness.  During  all  those 
years  he  could  not  turn  his  mind's  eye 
from  the  unhappy  creatures  that  were 
being  crushed  body  and  soul  in  the 
iron  furnace  of  Egypt.  By  night  and 
by  day  he  seemed  to  hear  the  groaning 
and  weeping,  the  accents  of  woe  and 
despair  of  those  held  in  cruel  bondage. 
Sleepless  grief  brooded  over  his  great 


44  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

soul.  His  heart  was  full  of  bitterness 
against  the  oppressors  and  their  divinities. 
The  gods  were  deaf  to  the  cries  and 
lamentations  of  the  weak  and  oppressed. 
They  had  hearts  of  stone.  They  were 
cruel  like  their  ruthless  worshipers. 
The)'  were  bribed  by  sacrifices,  temples 
and  flattering  hymns,  to  aid  the  wicked 
tyrant.  Whence  should  help  come  ? 
Surely  not  from  the  merciless  and  un- 
just gods  of  the  sun,  of  the  moon,  of  the 
stars,  of  the  earth,  of  the  rivers  and 
mountains  !  Through  the  long  night  of 
spiritual  despair  he  went  on  wrestling 
with  black  care  and  with  the  demon-gods, 
who  were  but  the  terrifying  shadows  of 
nature's  soulless  phenomena. 

At  last,  in  an  hour  of  over-flowing 
grace,  which  was  the  birth-hour  of  moral 
monotheism,  of  the  religion  of  humanity, 
light  began  to  dawn  on  his  struggling 
soul.  In  the  awful  stillness  round  about 
him  he  saw  the  world-mystery  lit  up  by 
the  far-spreading  flames  of  divine  love, 
and  he  heard  the  still  voice  of  the  world- 
soul  speaking  within  his  breast : 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  45 

"  Seek  not  God  in  sun,  moon  or  star. 
Search  not  after  him  in  fire  and  water,  in 
clouds  and  winds,  in  storms  and  earth- 
quakes. Thou  wilt  not  find  him  in  earth, 
rivers  and  seas.  They  are  not  gods. 
There  is  no  will  nor  reason  in  them  nor 
goodness  and  justice.  They  come  and  go, 
they  change  and  pass  away,  obeying  a 
power  and  a  will  that  is  unsearchable. 
He  whom  thy  soul  yearns  after  is  Yahve, 
the  eternal  spirit.  He  is,  he  was  and  he 
will  be  forever.  I  am  that  I  am,  the  same 
from  eternity  to  eternity,  the  cause  of  all 
being,  the  hidden  source  and  power  and 
rule  of  all  creation.  I  am,  that  is  my 
name.  No  phantom  appearance  I,  no 
delusive  and  vanishing  form,  no  incarna- 
tion of  anything  that  is  in  the  heavens 
above,  in  the. earth  beneath  and  in  the 
waters  under  the  earth,  but  the  living 
and  almighty  Lord  of  the  spirits  of  all 
men.  Worship  him  not  as  the  likeness 
of  anything  visible  and  material  in  all 
creation.  Adore  him  as  likest  that  which 
is  the  highest,  holiest,  divinest  in  man  ; 
like  reason  shining  in  darkness,  like  jus- 


46  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

tice  crushing  the  head  of  oppression,  like 
love  going  forth  to  all  flesh. 

"  For  Yahve  is  a  just  and  righteous 
God,  slow  to  anger  and  rich  in  mercy. 
Yahve  is  a  gracious  and  merciful  God, 
long-suffering  and  abundant  in  goodness 
and  truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands, 
forgiving  iniquity,  transgression  and  sin, 
but  who  will  by  no  means  clear  the 
guilty.  He  executes  the  judgment  of 
the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  and  loves 
the  stranger.  His  mercy  extends  over  all 
the  children  of  men  ;  for  he  has  created 
them  all.  He  is  the  father  of  all  the 
families  of  the  earth.  He  sees  the  afflic- 
tion of  those  who  cry  by  reason  of  their 
taskmasters.  He  knows  their  sorrows. 
He  will  redeem  his  children  from  the 
hand  of  their  oppressors.  .  They  that  do 
justice  with  all  their  might  and  love 
mercy  with  all  their  heart  and  all  their 
Nsoul,  are  Yahve's  chosen  messengers.  In 
them  does  his  spirit  abide,  through 
them  he  makes  manifest  his  way  of 
righteousness,  through  their  saving 
deeds  does  he  act  out  his  redeeming  will. 
The  fierce  anger  which  burns  in  thy 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  47 

breast  against  the  inhuman  despots  is 
the  consuming  wrath  of  Yahve,  the  just 
and  righteous.  Thy  compassion,  which 
weeps  for  the  downtrodden  and  afflicted, 
is  the  love  of  the  Holy  One  throbbing 
in  thy  heart.  By  the  power  divine,  that 
possesses  and  thrills  thy  soul,  thou  shalt 
go  and  deliver  the  children  of  Israel 
from  the  bondage  of  Egypt.  Upon  this 
mountain  thou  shalt  teach  the  redeemed 
ones  to  know  Yahve,  to  worship  him  as 
their  lawgiver,  their  judge  and  saviour, 
and  adore  him  in  the  spirit  of  truth 
and  justice,  of  loving-kindness  and  holi- 
ness." 

The  soul  of  Moses,  though  distrustful 
of  its  own  powers,  yielded  obedience  to 
the  command  of  the  world-soul  commun- 
ing with  him  in  the  holy  of  holies  of  his 
being.  Firmly  trusting  in  the  might, 
the  wisdom  and  faithfulness  of  Yahve, 
the  prophet  started  on  his  mission  to  de- 
liver the  enslaved  tribes,  to  remove  them 
from  the  seat  of  their  idolatry,  and  lead 
them  to  a  new  land,  and  there  to  fashion 
them  into  a  new  people.  The  people  he 
intended  to  form  was  not  to  be  held 


48  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

together  by  the  ties  of  blood.  It  was 
not  to  be  presided  over  by  a  local  an- 
cestral deity.  "It  should  be  bound  to- 
gether by  the  bonds  of  their  common 
humanity.  The  relation  of  the  new  na- 
tion to  the  overruling  Divinity  should 
consist  in  a  perpetual  covenant  of  right- 
eousness with  Yahve,  the  Father  of  jus- 
tice and  mercy,  the  Lord  of  all  spirits, 
the  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth. 

From  that  day  dates  the  new  history 
of  mankind.  In  that  hour  moral  mono- 
theism, the  religion  of  humanity  and  the 
germ  of  a  new  and  higher  social  and 
political  order  came  to  birth  in  the  fruit- 
ful genius  of  Moses.  In  that  mind  of 
marvelous  originality  the  race  of  man  for 
the  first  time  turned  away  from  the  wor- 
ship of  the  material  and  external  world, 
from  the  adoration  of  the  irrational  and 
unmoral  powers  of  nature.  In  him  man 
first  bent  his  gaze  inwardly  upon  the  life 
of  the  soul,  upon  consciousness  and  moral 
willing,  and  conceived  the  supreme  and 
all-creative  power  in  the  image  of  highest 
reason,  in  the  likeness  of  perfect  good- 
ness, in  the  similitude  of  mercy.  The 


THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES.  49 

Spirit  just  and  righteous  is  the  central 
sun,  around  which  the  universe  and  man- 
kind revolve.  From  him  they  receive 
their  illumination,  their  meaning,  pur- 
pose and  worth.  The  supreme  power  is 
supreme  reason.  The  Creator  of  heaven 
and  earth  is  infinite  justice.  The  Maker 
of  man  and  the  Ruler  of  his  destinies  is 
a  Spirit,  all-wise,  all-merciful.  Man  is 
the  chief  of  God's  creatures,  because  he 
is  made  in  the  spiritual  likeness  of  his 
Maker,  and  is  potentially  endowed  with 
the  ethical  qualities  of  the  Most  High. 
The  physical  life,  both  of  the  universe 
and  of  man,  comes  to  occupy  the  second- 
ary rank,  is  regarded  as  infinitely  inferior 
in  dignity  and  power  to  the  spiritual  and 
moral  life.  Material  nature  has  been  de- 
throned, the  spirit  is  declared  lord  and 
king  over  all.  All  the  instinctive  and 
sensual  forces,  all  the  unconscious  and 
unmoral  elements  in  man  and  in  the 
world  without  are  pushed  into  the  back- 
groiind.  Mind,  manifesting  itself  as  rea- 
son, freewill,  righteousness  and  love,  is 
crowned  with  majesty  and  honor,  and  is 
given  dominion  over  all  things. 


50  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

The  immediate  and  still  more  the  re- 
mote consequences  of  the  new  spiritual 
conception  of  the  universe  and  mankind, 
of  God  and  the  soul,  were  tremendous  in 
their  transforming  and  humanizing  in- 
fluences on  religion  and  government,  on 
private  and  public  morality,  on  the  ideas 
and  institutions  of  society.  The  world- 
theory  originated  by  Moses  regards  spirit 
as  the  essence,  as  the  creative  cause  and 
sovereign  power  of  the  universe  and  of 
human  life.  The  ultimate  effect  of  the 
Mosaic  world-conception  must  needs  be 
the  overthrow  of  the  pagan  theory  which 
considers  common  descent  according  to 
the  flesh  the  only  tie  of  kinship  and 
brotherhood,  the  sole  bond  of  social  and 
legal  affinity,  of  religious  and  national 
unity.  As  in  process  of  time  the  rich 
contents  of  the  sublime  Mosaic  ideas  un- 
folded themselves,  the  spiritual  bonds  of 
a  common  humanity  came  to  be  substi- 
tuted for  the  carnal  ties  of  physical  de- 
scent, and  the  unity  of  an  ethical  broth- 
erhood supplanted  the  animal  claims  of 
blood-relationship.  Men  may  greatly  dif- 
fer in  their  physical  characteristics.  They 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  51 

may  show  in  every  lineament  of  their 
bodily  constitution  that  they  belong  to 
different  races.  They  may  not  be  con- 
nected by  any  links  of  a  real  or  fancied 
ancestral  chain.  But  all  men  have  a  soul, 
a  spirit  akin  to  that  which  is  highest, 
holiest  and  most  perfect  in  existence. 
All  have  a  capacity  for  goodness,  which 
elevates  them  above  all  inanimate  nature 
and  above  all  animals,  and  brings  them 
into  close  relation  with  the  God  of 
righteousness. 

The  perfect  glory  of  the  idea  that 
humanity  is  the  spiritual  reflection  of 
God  flashed  out  upon  Moses'  mind  in  the 
hour  when  he  recognized  that  Yahve,  the 
creator  and  cause  of  all  being,  was  the 
all-just,  all-merciful  and  all-wise  Spirit  of 
spirits.  It  was  borne  in  upon  his  soul 
that  Yahve,  who  dwells  on  high,  looks 
down  with  pity  upon  the  poor  and 
afflicted,  that  he  will  redeem  the  despised 
outcasts  and  bring  them  nigh  unto  him- 
self, to  serve  him  and  become  a  blessing 
to  all  the  families  of  the  earth. 

With  his  soul  full  of  the  light  of  a 
new  heaven,  a  new  earth  and  a  new  hu- 


52  THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 


inanity,  the  man  of  destiny  went  down 
to  Egypt  to  perform  the  work  of  redemp- 
tion, which  was  to  be  the  seed  of  all 
future  redemptions  and  moral  blessings. 
The  magic  of  his  genius  and  the  irresist- 
ible power  of  his  awe-inspiring  person- 
ality succeeded  in  rescuing  not  only  the 
tribes  called  Benai  Israel,  but  numerous 
alien  people  that  had  shared  with  the 
Hebrews  the  cruel  lot  of  Egyptian  bond- 
age. The  prophet  of  the  God  of  universal 
righteousness,  the  champion  of  human 
rights,  had  for  these  poor  strangers,  who 
took  refuge  under  the  wings  of  his  sav- 
ing greatness,  the  same  pity  and  love 
which  he  felt  for  his  own  kinsmen. 

Providence  put  at  the  disposal  of  this 
creative  genius  a  mixed  multitude  of  un- 
allied  races.  It  was  the  fittest  material 
to  form  a  people  on  the  lines  of  the  new 
ideals,  to  establish  a  nation  on  the  spirit- 
ual foundation  of  man's  moral  dignity. 
What  came  to  be  known  in  history  as  the 
people  of  Israel  was  from  its  beginning 
made  up  of  several  heterogeneous  racial 
elements.  A  number  of  clans  doubtless 
belonged  to  what  may  be  called,  for  want 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  53 

of  a  better  name,  the  original  Hebrew 
stock,  which  had  several  centuries  be- 
fore settled  in  Goshen.  The  two  most 
powerful  tribes,  which  formed  the  bone 
and  sinew  of  the  new  people  and  whose 
prowess  and  love  of  independence  seem 
to  have  greatly  aided  Moses  in  his  work 
of  deliverance,  namely,  the  tribes  of  Eph- 
raim  and  Manasseh,  were,  as  the  Bible 
informs  us,  of  a  mixed  race,  due  to  inter- 
marriage between  Hebrews  and  Egypt- 
ians. According  to  the  Biblical  tradition, 
the  great  tribe  of  Judah  owed  its  origin 
to  the  blending  of  Hebrew  and  Canaan- 
itish  blood.  If  we  assume  that  the 
Canaanitish  elements  were  absorbed  after 
the  occupation  of  Palestine,  then  the  tribe 
of  Judah  had  no  distinct  existence  before 
the  Exodus.  Moses  married  into  a  Mid- 
ianitish  clan.  His  descendants,  who  were 
the  guardians  of  the  Ark  and  the  chief 
priesthood  of  Israel  till  the  time  of  David, 
were  thus  of  mixed  Hebrew  and  Midian- 
itish  descent.  The  tribes  traced  in  the 
Bible  to  the  so-called  maidservants  of 
Jacob,  are  clearly  designated  as  half- 
breeds,  having  a  large  admixture  of  foreign 


54  THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 

blood  in  their  veins.  Besides  these  di- 
verse racial  groups  that  entered  as  parts 
into  the  making  of  Israel,  the  Biblical 
record  distinctly  states  that  a  numerous 
mixed  multitude  went  up  from  Egypt 
with  the  Hebrews  proper,  and  blended 
with  them. 

The  people  whom  Moses  delivered  and 
led  into  the  desert  were  at  first  an  un- 
formed and  incoherent  mass.  They  were 
the  raw  but  plastic  material  into  which 
the  creative  genius  of  Moses  breathed  the 
breath  of  his  own  spiritual  life,  so  that 
they  became  a  living  people,  having  a 
new  spiritual  principle  for  its  animated 
soul.  The  various  clans  and  nondescript 
groups  were  not  welded  together  into  a 
people  by  a  belief  in  their  common  de- 
scent from  the  same  human  ancestors  and 
the  same  ancestral  gods.  People  that  had 
never  before  claimed  kinship  with  one 
another  and  had  been  united  by  no  ties 
of  common  worship,  suddenly  found  them- 
selves brought  together  by  an  astounding 
revolutionary  event,  and  placed  into  the 
closest  relation  with  one  another.  They 
had  left  behind  them  their  clan  and  tribal 


THE   RELIGION   OF  MOSES.  55 

gods  in  the  locality  which  they  had  in- 
habited for  ages.  For  the  pagan  gods 
were  chained  to  the  soil  of  their  original 
home,  and  could  not  quit  the  region  over 
which  their  empire  extended.  They 
were  identified  with  certain  mountains  or 
groves  or  fields,  being  merely  personifica- 
tions, animal  or  human,  of  the  particular 
locality.  Thus  the  emigrants  saw  them- 
selves all  at  once  deprived  of  their  clan 
divinities.  The  only  bond  of  union  be- 
tween them  for  the  time  being  was  the 
overpowering  personality  of  Moses,  and 
the  overmastering  influence  of  his  mind. 
Thus  the  great  master-builder  found  the 
human  material  at  his  disposal  well  pre- 
pared to  be  cast  into  the  mold  of  his  relig- 
ious ideas  and  moral  ideals,  to  be  fash- 
ioned into  a  people  consecrated  by  free 
choice  to  the  service  of  Yahve. 

The  cardinal  ideas  of  the  religion  of 
Moses  were  as  follows :  Yahve  is  not  the 
ancestor,  is  not  the  father  of  the  people 
of  Israel.  Yahve  and  Israel  are  not  con- 
nected by  the  ties  of  physical  kinship. 
For  Yahve  is  not  a  material  being,  but 
an  omnipotent  spirit,  and  none  of  the 


56  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

relations  of  sensual  and  natural  life  can 
be  ascribed  to  him.  In  absolute  distinc- 
tion from  all  heathen  gods  he  has  neither 
father  nor  mother,  neither  brothers  nor 
sisters,  neither  wife  nor  children.  The 
generative  processes  of  nature  in  which  all 
the  heathen  divinities  are  so  deeply  and 
inextricably  involved  do  not  apply  to  him. 
He  is  not  identical  with  nature  ;  he  is  no 
personification  of  the  whole  or  of  a  part 
thereof.  He  is  the  Lord  and  Maker  of  na- 
ture. He  commanded,  and  the  heavens 
and  earth  came  into  being.  He  is  a  pure 
intelligence.  The  relations  established 
between  him  and  the  people  of  Israel 
are  therefore  of  a  purely  ethical  and 
spiritual  kind.  He  chose  Israel  to  do  his 
service,  to  obey  his  commandments,  to 
observe  his  just  laws,  his  wise  statutes 
and  merciful  ordinances.  And  the  clans 
delivered  from  Egypt  of  their  own  free 
will  and  accord  chose  Yahve,  the  God 
proclaimed  by  Moses,  to  be  their  -God 
and  their  children's  God,  even  through- 
out all  generations.  It  was  a  perpetual 
covenant,  voluntarily  entered  into  be- 
tween the  redeemed  ones  and  their  Re- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  57 

deemer.  The  assembled  tribes  took  it 
upon  themselves  and  their  descendants 
after  them  to  serve  Yahve,  the  God  of 
righteousness,  alone  and  no  other  God 
beside  him.  By  this  covenant  of  right- 
eousness there  was  established  a  spiritual 
bond  of  national  union  between  the  hith- 
erto incoherent  clans  or  groups  and  be- 
tween the  people  thus  formed  and  their 
Lord  and  God. 

In  theory  at  least — though  the  practice 
has  been  lagging  behind  thousands  of 
years — the  primitive  belief  in  blood  as 
the  sole  tie  of  social,  national  and  politi- 
cal fellowships,  the  belief  in  kinship  as 
the  only  ground  of  moral  obligation,  as 
the  only  binding  relation  between  the 
worshiping  mortal  and  his  divinity,  was 
destroyed  by  the  ever  memorable  event 
described  in  the  Bible  as  the  revelation 
on  Mount  Sinai.  In  place  of  brute  ani- 
mal bonds  there  came  into  force  the  spir- 
itual bond  of  union  between  men,  the 
kinship  of  souls,  the  sublime  unity  of  the 
moral  nature,  embracing  all  rational  be- 
ings without  regard  to  race  differences, 
binding  together  the  Infinite  Mind  and 


58  THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 

all  finite  minds.  This  idea  of  the  spir- 
itual unity  of  mankind  in  Yahve,  the 
eternal  and  all-creative  spirit,  issued  forth 
in  the  fullness  of  its  glory  from  the  soul 
of  Moses.  But  not  even  now,  after  thirty- 
five  centuries  of  battle  and  progress,  has 
it  been  able  fully  to  overcome  and  sup- 
plant the  ancient  pagan  idea  and  practice 
of  separation  and  of  mutual  hostility  ac- 
cording to  race  and  blood.  Old  heathen- 
ism is  still  deep-seated  in  unregenerate 
hearts.  People  that  feel,  live  and  act  in 
obedience  to  the  animal  instincts  and 
selfish  passions  of  irrational  nature,  are 
prone  to  regard  themselves  as  mere  crea- 
tures and  tools  of  nature,  and  to  classify 
men  like  sheep  and  horses  according  to 
their  pedigree.  He  reads  the  annals 
of  mankind  to  little  purpose  who  fails 
to  grasp  the  momentous  fact  that  the 
religious  and  ethical  revolution  started 
by  Moses  aimed  to  wean  men  from  slav- 
ish subservience  to  sub-human  irrational 
forces,  to  transfer  the  world's  center  of 
gravity  from  the  life  of  natiire  below  man 
to  the  human  life  in  history,  to  see 
the  revelations  of  the  Infinite  chiefly  in 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  59 

the  growth  and  progress  of  reason.  The 
movement  of  humanity  in  the  new  direc- 
tion, the  return  of  humanity  upon  itself, 
set  in  on  the  day  when  Moses  proclaimed 
the  Ten  Commandments  as  the  religion 
and  the  code  of  ethics  of  mankind. 


III. 

THE  DECALOGUE. 

a.  UNITY  OF  GOD. 

b.  HIS  SERVICE. 

"  I  AM  Yahve,  thy  God,  who  brought 
thee  forth  from  Egypt,  out  of  the  house 
of  bondage,"  etc. 

The  starting-point  of  the  new  faith 
and  new  morality  is  not  the  external 
world,  is  not  the  work  of  creation,  but  a 
purely  historical  event,  a  divine  act  of 
justice  and  merciful  deliverance.  The 
ways  of  Yahve  are  henceforth  to  be 
sought  in  the  dealings  of  his  righteous- 
ness with  man.  His  laws  reveal  them- 
selves in  the  unfolding  of  the  highest 
moral  powers.  His  will  manifests  itself 
in  the  godward  development  of  the 
human  race  which  for  the  time  being  is 
represented  by  the  people  redeemed  by 
him  and  consecrated  to  his  service.  The 
worship  of  any  other  god  is  forbidden. 
For  such  worship  can  mean  only  the 
adoration  of  some  soulless  part  of  nature, 
of  some  brute  force,  of  beastlike  powers. 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  6l 


It  is  a  crime  to  worship  the  Divinity 
under  the  form  of  anything  that  is  in  the 
heavens  above,  on  the  earth  beneath  or 
in  the  waters  under  the  earth.  Such 
worship  is  a  degradation  of  the  soul  of 
man  and  a  denial  of  the  spirituality  and 
unity  of  God.  Yahve  is  the  sole  and  ab- 
solute Lord  and  Ruler  of  the  people  he 
had  saved  from  bondage  and  taken  unto 
himself.  Out  of  gratitude  for  having 
been  redeemed  by  him  from  the  degrad- 
ing service  of  Egypt,  the  tribes  cove- 
nanted to  serve  him,  to  obey  his  voice,  to 
observe  his  commandments  and  statutes. 
In  what  does  Yahve's  service  consist  ? 
Is  it  in  principle  and  practice  like  that 
enjoined  by  the  pagan  gods  ?  As  far  as 
the  east  is  from  the  west,  as  far  as  brutal 
savagery  is  from  enlightened  humanity, 
so  different  is  the  service  to  be  rendered 
to  Yahve  from  that  which  the  gods  of  the 
heathen  were  believed  to  require  at  the 
hands  of  their  worshipers.  The  pagan 
divinities  were  one  and  all  the  owners  or 
fathers  of  their  respective  communities. 
They  did  their  best  to  secure  the  pros- 
perity and  power  of  their  own  children. 


62  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

Their  own  personal  interests,  their  very 
existence  was  involved  in  the  welfare  of 
their  nation.  They  approved  of  moral 
conduct  only  in  so  far  as  it  helped  to  make 
their  people  prosperous.  Their  motives 
were  selfish  and  not  ethical.  The  obedience 
they  exacted  of  their  worshipers  was  that 
due  to  despotic  fathers.  They  demanded 
sacrifices  and  incense,  the  fat  of  bulls  and 
rams.  Many  of  them  delighted  in  heca- 
tombs of  human  victims.  To  many  male 
and  female  divinities  worship  was  paid  in 
the  form  of  unbridled  licentiousness.  But 
the  service  of  Yahve  was  in  principle  and 
practice  of  an  absolutely  ethical  nature. 
Yahve  is  just,  righteous,  merciful,  and 
holy.  He  is  synonymous  with  goodness 
and  perfection.  His  ways  are  righteous 
altogether.  He  is  gracious  and  full  of 
compassion,  abundant  in  kindness  and 
truth.  He  hates  evil  and  loves  good. 
All  the  works  of  iniquity  are  an  abomi- 
nation to  him.  The  evildoers  are  his 
adversaries,  those  that  practice  injustice 
are  his  haters.  There  can  be,  therefore, 
but  one  kind  of  service  that  is  acceptable 
to  him — the  service  of  righteousness. 


THE    RELIGION    OF   MOSES.  63 

The  worshipers  of  Yahve  can  serve  him 
only  by  walking  in  his  ways,  by  fulfilling 
his  righteous  commandments,  by  observ- 
ing his  just  statutes  and  merciful  judg- 
ments. The  will  of  their  God  and  Lord 
is  a  law  inviolable  and  eternal  unto  his 
servants.  But  it  is  not  the  selfish  will  of 
a  divine  despot,  imposing  his  arbitrary 
authority  on  the  people  of  his  possession 
and  prescribing  to  it  rules  of  conduct  by 
which  he  himself  is  not  bound.  The  laws 
of  life  enjoined  by  Yahve  on  his  servants 
flow  from  his  own  all-good  being.  They 
are  the  immutable  qualities  of  his  perfec- 
tion, the  perennial  modes  of  his  self- 
manifestation.  The  laws  of  goodness  are 
the  immanent  attributes  of  the  universal 
reason  and  will.  The  human  soul  is  akin 
to  the  world-soul.  Therefore,  the  divine 
laws  of  goodness  are  not  foreign  and  re- 
pugnant to  it,  but  are  in  harmony  with 
its  own  higher  life.  They  are  not  com- 
mands laid  upon  it  by  a  tyrannical  ex- 
ternal power,  but  are  the  expression  of 
man's  spiritual  nature  striving  to  realize 
its  own  godlike  powers.  The  relation  of 
man  to  God  is  that  of  an  imperfect  spirit- 


64  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ual  being,  that  is  to  grow  into  harmony 
and  likeness  with  the  perfect  spirit  by 
learning  to  know  and  walk  in  his  ways. 
These  ways  are  not  mysterious  and  in- 
comprehensible to  human  intelligence. 
They  are  not  beyond  the  reach  of  aspir- 
ing human  nature.  They  are  not  in 
heaven,  that  one  should  say,  "  Who  will 
go  up  to  heaven  and  bring  them  down  to 
us  ?"  They  are  in  man's  heart  and  mouth 
to  know  and  observe  them.  They  are 
the  ways  of  humanity,  the  ways  of  life 
and  blessedness.  The  Ten  Command- 
ments are  divine  because  they  tend  to 
make  human  life  perfect.  But  they  are 
no  mere  ordinances  of  human  reason,  be- 
cause they  derive  their  sanctity  from  the 
will  and  essence  of  the  Eternal,  being  the 
revelations  of  the  Infinite  Reason  through 
the  finite  reason  of  man. 

C.  YAHVE   IS   A   GOD   OF  TRUTH. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of 
Yahve,  thy  God,  in  falsehood  "  anchors 
the  duty  of  truthfulness  to  the  Rock  of 
Ages.  Yahve  is  a  God  of  truth.  He  keeps 
faith  forever.  When  he  says,  is  it  not 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  65 

done  ?  When  he  promises,  is  it  not 
fulfilled?  His  throne  is  established  on 
truth.  He  that  takes  Yahve's  name  in 
falsehood  rebels  against  the  majesty  of 
the  God  of  truth  and  faithfulness.  He 
violates  the  bond  of  union  between  God 
and  man,  between  man  and  his  fellow- 
men.  Truthfulness  in  word  and  deed  is 
no  mere  matter  of  prudence  and  social 
usefulness,  but  is  invested  with  the  awful 
dignity  of  a  divine  attribute,  in  which 
the  worshiper  must  share  with  his  God. 

d.  DUTY  OF  LABOR  AND  REST. 

"  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor  and  do  all 
thy  work,  but  the  seventh  is  a  day  of 
rest  unto  Yahve  thy  God." 

This  commandment  gives  to  human 
labor  a  divine  sanction  and  moral  dignity 
unknown  to  the  pagan  world.  It  frees 
labor  from  the  contempt  in  which  it  was 
held  by  the  heathen  nations.  Their 
whole  social  system  rested  on  slave 
labor,  on  the  oppression  of  the  weak  by 
the  strong.  The  masterful  oppressors 
were  regarded  as  the  children  of  the 
conquering  gods,  who  gave  the  poor  and 


66  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

stranger  into  the  power  of  their  favor- 
ites, in  order  to  enable  them  to  live  in 
idleness  by  the  toil  of  other  men.  Labor 
was  despised  ;  it  was  considered  a  badge 
of  slavery.  No  free  man  would  degrade 
himself  by  eating  his  bread  in  the  sweat 
of  his  brow.  But  Yahve  loves  the  poor 
and  stranger.  He  delivered  the  enslaved 
tribes  from  the  hand  of  the  tyrant,  and 
brought  them  nigh  unto  himself  to  be 
the  people  of  his  covenant. 

He  who  lives  by  the  labor  of  his  op- 
pressed fellow-men  is  an  abomination  to 
God.  Every  man  is  a  spiritual  being  ; 
every  human  being  is  made  in  the  like- 
ness of  the  Eternal.  For  this  reason 
every  man  is  entitled  to  the  fruits  of  his 
labor. 

Six  days  shall  every  man  labor  and 
do  his  work.  Work  is  the  duty  and 
glory  of  man.  For  Yahve  himself  man- 
ifests his  wisdom  and  majesty  in  the 
work  of  creation.  The  dignity  of  labor, 
resting  on  the  moral  dignity  of  man,  is 
the  ideal  basis  upon  which  the  society  of 
the  future,  the  society  of  God  and  hu- 
manity, is  to  build  itself. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  67 

The  seventh  day  rest  was  instituted 
by  Moses  to  remind  the  Israelites  that, 
as  they  were  not  the  bondmen  of  any 
man,  they  should  not  degrade  themselves 
to  the  position  of  slaves  toiling  incess- 
antly without  ever  enjoying  sweet  repose. 
They  must  remember  that  they  are  free 
men,  by  virtue  of  their  knowing  and 
serving  the  God  of  liberty,  who  had  de- 
livered them  from  the  bondage  of  Egypt. 
The  Sabbath  is  an  everlasting  memorial 
of  the  fact  that  redemption  from  slavery 
was  the  starting-point  of  the  history  and 
the  motive  power  of  the  mission  of  Israel, 
that  it  is  the  end  and  aim  of  religion  to 
make  men  morally  and  socially  free 
through  their  life  in  God.  One  day  in 
the  week  should  be  consecrated  to  the 
spiritual  relations  between  man  and  God. 
Moreover,  the  love  of  God  extends, 
through  the  compassion  of  man,  to  all 
his  creatures,  and  a  day  of  rest  is  given 
to  the  menservants  and  maidservants,  and 
even  to  the  beasts  of  burden,  so  that  the 
peace  and  joy  of  God  should  reign  on  the 
Sabbath  day  in  every  household. 


68  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


6 — THE  SPIRITUAL   NATURE  OF  FILIAL   PIETY. 

"  Honor  thy  father  and  mother,  that 
thy  days  may  be  prolonged  in  the  land 
which  Yahve  giveth  thee." 

By  this  commandment  filial  piety  was 
detached  from  its  roots  in  the  primitive 
pagan  theory  of  the  family,  and  was  trans- 
planted into  the  new  fruitful  soil  of  moral 
monotheism.  Honor  is  due  to  parents,, 
but  not  because  the  blood  of  the  family 
gods  is  transmitted  to  the  children  by 
their  father  and  mother.  The' commands 
of  father  and  mother  are  to  be  obeyed, 
but  not  because  they  are  the  living  repre- 
sentatives of  the  divinities,  from  whom 
the  family  derives  its  physical  descent. 
The  piirely  animal  ties  of  blood  relation- 
ship are  unworthy  the  spiritual  nature  of 
man. 

With  all  save  a  few  most  advanced 
pagan  societies  the  relation  believed  to 
subsist  between  the  gods  and  their  wor- 
shipers was  of  an  unmistakably  animal 
nature.  For  the  divinities  adored  as  the 
fathers  of  families,  of  clans,  of  tribes  and 
of  nations,  were  conceived  of  as  beasts 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  69 

and  not  as  manlike  beings.  Every  kin- 
ship, from  the  smallest  and  simplest  to 
the  largest  and  most  complex,  traced  its 
pedigree  to  a  divine  animal. 

One  of  the  consequences  of  this  purely 
physical  or  animal  connection  between 
divine  ancestors,  human  parents  and  chil- 
dren, was  that  either  the  mother  or  the 
father  alone  was  honored  and  obeyed  ac- 
cording to  the  theory  and  law  of  descent 
prevalent  in  a  society.  Where  descent 
followed  the  maternal  line,  the  mother 
alone  had  authority  over  her  children, 
while  the  father  was  not  regarded  as  of 
kin  to  his  own  sons  and  daughters,  and 
could  lay  no  claim  to  their  respect. 
Where  descent  was  exclusively  in  the 
paternal  line,  the  father  alone  was  looked 
upon  as  the  true  parent.  He  alone 
wielded  absolute  authority  over  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family.  Filial  piety  meant 
honor  and  obedience  paid  solely  to  him. 
The  mother  had  no  share,  as  far  as  the 
law  went,  in  the  reverence  and  devotion 
of  her  children.  Thus  the  vital  princi- 
ple underlying  the  pagan  family  confined 
the  duties  of  filial  piety  to  one  parent,  and 


70  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

in  an  overwhelming  majority  of  societies 
degraded  the  mother,  deprived  her  of  all 
legitimate  authority  over  her  children, 
and  withheld  from  her  the  meed  of  filial 
reverence. 

Moreover,  parental  authority  rested 
exclusively  on  the'  assumed  bonds  of 
blood  relationship  between  the  divine 
ancestor  and  the  human  members  of  his 
family.  As  long  as  the  child-like  belief 
in  the  actual  physical  descent  of  the 
family  from  the  family  god  was  held  in 
all  sincerity,  filial  piety  stood  on  firm 
ground.  But  with  growing  civilization, 
sooner  or  later  a  time  arrived  when 
better  knowledge  destroyed  the  belief 
in  the  descent  of  human  beings  from  a 
god.  With  the  destruction  of  that  be- 
lief, filial  piety  had  no  longer  a  religious 
basis  to  rest  on.  The  family  ties  broke 
down  for  want  of  an  organic  welding 
principle.  Why  should  children  rever- 
ence their  father  after  the  once  all-pow- 
erful religious  reason  had  lost  its  hold  on 
the  minds  of  men?  This  explains  the 
frightful  demoralization  of  family  life,  and 
the  almost  total  dissolution  of  the  bonds  of 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


filial  piety  in  every  pagan  society,  which 
had  reached  a  certain  advanced  stage  of 
intellectual  development 

In  the  Decalogue  filial  piety  is  forever 
liberated  from  the  base  heathen  concep- 
tion which  we  have  described.  Like  other 
duties,  it  is  revealed  and  commanded  by 
the  infinite  Reason  and  Perfect  Will  as 
an  absolute  ethical  obligation  which  the 
finite  reason  and  imperfect  will  of  man 
must  strive  to  fulfill,  in  order  to  live  and 
act  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  the  su- 
preme Intelligence  and  Goodness.  Man 
becomes  himself,  develops  his  true  self, 
realizes  his  spiritual  nature,  the  more  his 
will  is  at  one  with  the  all-just  and  all- 
good  will  of  God. 

God  is  not  the  father  of  man  in  a 
physical  sense.  He  is  his  spiritual  guide 
and  law-giver.  Obedience  to  the  right- 
eous will  of  Yahve  constitutes  the  bond 
of  living  unity,  the  covenant  of  right- 
eousness between  man  and  God.  Honor 
and  obedience  are  not  to  be  paid  to  par- 
ents because  they  are  more  closely  than 
any  other  beings  connected  with  their 
children  bv  the  ties  of  flesh  and  blood. 


72  THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 

Above  the  mere  physical  unity  there  rises 
the  holy  unity  of  spiritual  kinship,  of 
ethical  communion,  the  divine  unity  of 
sympathy  and  love,  of  gratitude  and  rev- 
erence. The  life  of  God  in  humanity  and 
nature  concentrates  and  sums  itself  up  in 
the  relation  of  god-fearing  parents  to  their 
offspring.  The  faithfulness  and  mercy 
of  Providence  reveal  themselves  to  the 
children  through  the  loving-kindness  and 
moral  discipline  of  father  and  mother. 
Honor  and  gratitude  shown  to  them  is 
honor  and  gratitude  displayed  toward  the 
Author  of  all  life.  In  the  parents  the 
children  obey  and  reverence  the  spiritual 
messengers  of  the  divine  lawgiver  and 
benefactor.  The}-  are  the  fountain-head 
and  chief  representatives  of  the  social  life 
of  mankind,  without  which  man  ceases  to 
be  man  and  sinks  to  the  level  of  a  brute. 
Without  obedience  to  the  divine  laws 
aiming  at  the  general  good,  society  must 
dissolve  into  its  component  parts.  With- 
out early  training  in  moral  discipline  and 
obedience  to  the  behests  of  duty,  the  in- 
dividual will  grow  up  fiercely  selfish  and 
brutal,  rebellious  to  the  commands  of  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  73 

social  good,  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of 
others,  caring  only  for  his  own  interests 
and  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  passionate 
desires. 

The  family  is  the  ethical  training 
school  of  humanity.  From  its  heart  are 
all  the  issues  of  life,  of  national  health 
and  disease,  of  virtue  and  corruption,  of 
the  fear  of  God  and  of  self-destructive 
disobedience  to  the  voice  of  the  Most 
High.  The  parents  are  the  prophets  of 
God,  through  whom  he  teaches  the  gen- 
erations of  man  how  to  walk  in  his  ways. 
They  are  the  instruments  of  his  holy 
will,  the  executors  of  his  laws  through 
the  power  of  love  and  divinely  constituted 
authority. 

Yet  the  authority  of  father  and  mother 
according  to  Mosaic  law  is  quite  different 
from  that  exercised  by  the  father  in  pagan 
societies.  The  latter  was  the  absolute 
owner  of  his  children  and  of  their  mother. 
He  could  sell  them  or  slay  them.  They 
belonged  to  him  by  virtue  of  the  physi- 
cal life  which  they  derived  from  him. 
But  according  to  the  higher,  spiritual  law 
of  the  Decalogue,  the  father  was  by  no 


74  THE   RELIGION    OF   MOSES. 

means  the  possessor  and  master  of  his 
children.  The  voice  of  Yahve  addresses 
itself  directly  to  the  children,  and  makes 
filial  piety  an  ethical  obligation  and  not 
a  matter  of  blind  submission  to  a  natural 
power.  The  children  stand  in  an  imme- 
diate and  direct  relation  to  Yahve.  The 
father  is  not  the  priest  and  mediator  be- 
tween God  and  his  children.  With  the 
breaking  down  of  the  pagan  principle  of 
worship,  the  wall  of  separation  between 
the  Deity  and  the  individual  disappeared 
and  every  man  stood  face  to  face  with  his 
Maker. 

This  spiritual  and  ethical  principle  of 
filial  piety,  according  to  the  new  dispen- 
sation, could  not  but  give  the  mother  equal 
dignity  with  the  father.  It  culminated 
in  the  commandment,  "  Honor  thy  father 
and  thy  mother."  The  wife  was  not  the 
property  of  her  husband,  but  his  help- 
mate, with  whom  he  was  to  become  one 
being  through  the  covenant  of  love. 
Thus  the  new  religion  of  Yahvism,  or 
moral  monotheism,  created  the  new  fam- 
ily which  was  welded  together  by  spirit- 
ual forces,  and  rested  on  the  immovable 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  75 

foundation  of  divinely  sanctioned  ethical 
relations.  This  new  creation  has  en- 
dowed every  society,  animated  by  and 
organized  according  to  the  spirit  of  Yahv- 
ism,  with  inexhaustible  and  indestructi- 
ble vitality. 

f—  SACREDNESS  OF  LIFE. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill."  With  this 
commandment  the  ethics  of  justice  broke 
entirely  away  from  the  savage  conception 
of  human  life,  from  the  narrow  and  un- 
ethical view  of  murder.  For  this  injunc- 
tion invests  the  life  of  every  human  being 
with  inviolable  sanctity.  It  is  not  said, 
uThou  shalt  not  kill  thy  brother,  thou 
shalt  not  kill  a  blood  relation,  a  member 
of  thy  clan  or  tribe,  or  a  son  of  thy  peo- 
ple." In  the  most  general  and  universal 
way  it  is  said,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill," 
embracing  in  the  prohibition  all  human 
beings,  without  any  reference  to  the  bonds 
of  kinship.  The  fatal  spell  of  the  past 
is  broken. 

The  savage,  murderous  yell  of  man 
springing  upon  man  to  slay  him  as  his 
born  enemy,  as  the  natural  foe  of  his 
tribe  and  his  god,  shall  no  longer  be 


76  THE    RELIGION    OF    MOSES. 

heard  within  a  world  which  is  sanctified 
and  ruled  by  the  God  of  humanity. 
Across  the  river  of  blood,  separating  man 
from  man,  a  spiritual  bridge  is  thrown, 
uniting  all  men,  the  bridge  of  human 
brotherhood.  The  natural  man,  fettered 
and  cribbed  in  his  sympathies  by  the  ties 
of  blood,  confined  within  the  narrow 
prison  of  kinship,  shall  be  changed  into 
the  spiritual  man,  and  become  brother  to 
all  the  children  of  Adam.  All  men  are 
made  in  the  spiritual  image  of  God.  He 
that  kills  any  human  being  commits  a 
crime  against  the  majesty  of  Yahve  which 
resides  in  man.  He  destroys  the  likeness 
of  the  Maker.  "Thou  shalt  not  kill"  is 
the  solemn  declaration  of  Yahvism,  that 
human  life  is  sacred,  that  the  moral  dig- 
nity of  man  invests  him  with  godlike 
character  and  value.  "Thou  shalt  not 
kill " ;  the  injunction  is  absolute,  and  ad- 
mits no  exception.  This  commandment 
is  the  divine  law,  which  shall  in  the  last 
days  unfold  and  open  into  the  full-blown 
flower  of  universal  peace.  Then  the 
righteousness  of  Yahve  shall  be  the  judge 
of  all  nations  and  the  umpire  of  all  king- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  77 

doms,  and  "they  shall  beat  their  swords 
into  plowshares,  and  their  spears  into 
priming-hooks.  Nation  shall  not  lift 
np  the  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall 
they  learn  war  any  more." 

g — PURITY   OF   LIFE. 

The  commandment  forbidding  mur- 
der is  immediately  followed  in  the  Deca- 
logue by  the  commandment  against  un- 
chastity.  There  is  an  intimate  and 
organic  connection  between  these  two 
commandments  in  the  ethical  scheme  of 
Yahvism,  as  opposed  to  the  polytheistic 
theory  of  morality  and  society.  The  root 
idea  of  pagan  religion,  laws,  and  social 
bonds  was  as  follows  :  Every  clan,  tribe, 
and  people  has  a  parent  god  or  goddess, 
who  gave  birth  to  their  community. 
From  him  or  her  the  successive  genera- 
tions  derive  their  life.  Every  society  is 
in  the  absolute  possession  of  its  own  an- 
cestral deity.  It  exists  mainly  for  the 
service  and  pleasure  of  the  communal 
divinity.  The  will  of  the.  tribal  or  na- 
tional god  is  absolutely  binding  on  all 
his  children.  His  commands  are  laws  to 
all  the  members  of  the  kinship,  no  mat- 


78  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ter  whether  they  appear  moral  or  im- 
moral to  human  judgment.  For  they 
owe  their  physical  life  and  being  to  him. 
They  are  his  children  and  servants.  The 
members  of  every  other  kinship  or  com- 
munity are  regarded  as  born  enemies,  and 
their  gods  are  hated  and  dreaded  as  evil 
demons.  Strangers  possess  no  rights 
whatever ;  they  may  be  killed  as  if  they 
were  animals.  Community  of  blood  alone 
secures  common  rights.  Where  the  tie 
of  blood  is  lacking  there  exists  no  bond 
of  moral  obligation. 

We  can  but  faintly  realize  what  an 
all-absorbing  part  physical  descent,  the 
mystery  of  fatherhood,  motherhood,  and 
brotherhood,  played  in  the  unfolding  so- 
cial life,  in  the  religious  yearnings  and 
guesses  and  child-like  stammerings  of  the 
remote  ancestors  of  the  race.  The  gen- 
erative processes  in  nature  and  mankind, 
the  mystery  of  birth,  of  growth  and 
death,  the  coming  forth  of  living  beings 
out  of  non-existence,  the  disappearance 
of  all  beings  and  vanishing  into  noth- 
ingness, filled  the  primitive  mind  with 
speechless  awe  and  wonder.  The  past 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  79 

generations  are  linked  to  the  present  and 
future  generations  by  the  mystic  chain  of 
birth.  The  generative  process  was  ap- 
plied as  a  key  and  explanation  to  all  that 
is,  to  all  the  phenomena  of  nature,  to  all 
things  animate  and  inanimate,  to  animals, 
men,  and  gods.  How  did  anything  that  is 
come  into  being  ?  And  answer  was  given, 
"  By  the  process  of  birth."  The  gods 
themselves  were  born  and  gave  birth  to 
other  gods  and  to  men.  They  are  wor- 
shiped, obeyed,  and  served,  because  they 
are  the  parent  causes  of  life  in  brute  and 
man,  they  are  adored  because  they  are 
the  fathers  and  mothers,  the  procreators 
of  families,  clans,  tribes,  and  nations. 

This  fact  explains  the  terrible  aber- 
ration of  the  pagan  mind,  which  culmi- 
nated in  the  shameful  service  of  licen- 
tiousness instituted  at  the  temples  in 
honor  of  the  great  gods,  the  fathers  of 
tribes  and  nations.  Frightful  orgies  were 
celebrated  for  the  glory  of  the  mother- 
goddesses,  in  order  to  imitate  their  ex- 
ample, believed  to  be  given  in  the  phe- 
nomena and  processes  of  nature's  procre- 
ative  life.  Up  to  the  rise  of  Yahvism 


8O  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

the  mind  of  man  was  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  contemplation  and  worship  of  object- 
ive or  external  nature.  For  good  and  for 
evil  man  tried  to  walk  in  her  ways.  In 
order  to  satisfy  the  assumed  wishes  of 
his  gods  and  goddesses,  he  endeavored  to 
copy  their  sensual  characteristics.  He 
often  put  his  humanity  to  the  blush,  he 
often  degraded  himself  to  the  level  of 
brutes,  in  order  to  obey  the  divine  powers 
that  confronted  him.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  painful  and  humiliating  facts  in 
history  that  the  nature-religions  fostered 
immorality  to  an  incredible  degree.  They 
consecrated  the  most  abominable  vices, 
and  recommended  to  men  shameful  prac- 
tices as  acts  of  worship.  They  stifled 
the  still  voice  of  conscience  with  the  ve- 
hement command  to  do  the  pleasure  of 
the  gods  at  all  hazards,  and  to  walk  in 
their  ways  in  spite  of  the  protests  of 
every-day  morality. 

Yahvism  came  into  the  world  to  lib- 
erate the  soul  of  man  from  the  demoral- 
izing bondage  of  nature  and  nature-gods, 
to  give  free  scope  to  the  growing  moral 
sentiments  and  the  unfolding  conscience. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  8 1 

Moses  proclaimed  a  spiritual  God,  con- 
ceived in  the  likeness  of  the  perfect  eth- 
ical ideal.  Yahve  is  not  the  father  of  gods 
and  men.  He  does  not  participate  in  the 
sensuous  life  of  nature.  He  is  a  God  of 
holiness  and  purity.  Vice  of  every  kind 
is  an  abomination  unto  him.  He  loathes 
the  licentious  practices  and  shameful 
usages  of  heathen  worship.  His  servants 
are  required  to  lead  chaste  lives.  They 
are  forbidden  to  walk  after  their  eyes  and 
the  desires  of  their  heart.  They  are  com- 
manded to  subdue  their  passions  in  obe- 
dience to  the  Holy  One,  whose  ways 
should  be  their  ways. 

From  the  very  hour  of  its  birth  to  this 
late  day  it  has  been  the  chief  aim  of 
Yahvism  to  emancipate  the  spirit  from 
the  flesh,  to  liberate  the  mind  from  the 
greedy,  blindly  urging  passions,  and  to 
make  reason  the  sole  guide  of  conduct,  the 
measurer  and  determiner  of  all  thoughts 
and  actions.  Deep  down  to  the  very  last 
elements  of  human  conduct,  through  all 
the  strata  of  public  and  private  life,  there 
runs  a  line  of  cleavage  between  spiritual 
Yahvism  and  nature-born  paganism.  The 


82  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

latter  is  essentially  immoral ;  the  former 
is  nothing  if  not  ethical. 

In  its  main  tendencies  and  religions 
speculations,  in  its  social  forms  and  family 
institutions,  the  polytheistic  world  was 
in  the  leading-strings  of  sub-human  na- 
ture, in  the  mighty  grasp  and  under  the 
direction  of  the  instinctive  forces  common 
to  brute  and  man.  Worse  still,  these  in- 
stinctive forces  were  regarded  with  mys- 
tic awe,  were  worshiped  as  the  parent 
powers,  and  their  manifestation  and  move- 
ments were  obeyed  as  laws  and  imitated 
as  divine  examples.  For  this  reason  the 
practice  of  horrible  vices  was  commanded 
by  primitive  custom  and  sanctioned  by 
priestly  codes.  Indeed,  men  brought  up 
under  the  influence  of  the  Mosaic  law  can 
form  no  adequate  conception  of  the  pri- 
vate and  institutional  immorality  which 
was  the  rule  among  the  heathen  nations. 
Where,  as  among  the  early  Romans, 
purity  of  family  life  happened  to  prevail, 
it  lasted  only  as  long  as  the  child-like  be- 
liefs held  their  own.  But  as  soon  as  they 
broke  down  before  the  march  of  advanc- 
ing knowledge  and  culture,  there  opened 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  83 

a  moral  chasm,  which  no  imperial  decrees 
and  punishments  were  able  to  close.  And 
again,  whenever  the  moral  forces  of 
nobler  natures  turned  with  horror  from 
the  witches'  sabbath  of  licentious  worship 
and  unbridled  passions,  there  appeared  in 
contrast  a  gloomy  and  unnatural  asceti- 
cism ;  there  was  a  turning  away  from  all 
the  legitimate  joys  of  life,  a  fanatical 
contempt  for  the  body  and  all  its  vital 
functions. 

But  Yahvism  rooted  the  duty  of 
chastity  and  purity  in  the  will  and  being 
of  a  spiritual  and  holy  God,  to  whom  all 
forms  of  licentious  service  were  an  abom- 
ination. The  purifying  and  spiritualizing 
effects  of  the  moral  discipline  of  Yahvism 
on  the  family  life  of  its  adherents,  the 
habits  of  virtue  and  temperance  it  bred 
in  them,  are  among  the  most  inspiring 
facts  in  the  history  of  man's  ethical  edu- 
cation. Whatever  else  may  be  said  in 
praise  of  genuine  Israelites  or  true  Yah- 
vists  of  all  races,  of  all  times  and  lands, 
they  are  surely  distinguished  by  the 
purity  of  their  family  relations,  by  the 
chaste  and  temperate  use  they  make  of 


84  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

the  material  pleasures  of  life,  being 
equally  removed  from  ascetic  mortifica- 
tion of  the  flesh  and  from  self-indulgent 
sensualism.  The  civilized  nations  of  to- 
day owe  their  moral  superiority  to  the 
fact  that  their  habits  of  thought  and 
feeling,  through  a  long  line  of  gener- 
ations, have  been  formed  by  the  rigorous 
ethical  ideas  of  Moses  and  his  spiritual 
successors.  Their  family  life  and  all 
other  social  institutions  have  been  shaped 
by  the  Yahvistic  ideals  of  virtue. 

h — SACRED  RIGHTS  OF  PROPERTY. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  steal."  In  the  main 
the  ideas  at  the  root  of  this  command- 
ment are  those  underlying  the  command- 
ment regarding  the  inviolability  and 
sanctity  of  every  human  life.  The  sa- 
cred rights  of  private  property  are  pro- 
claimed in  a  universal  way.  It  is  not 
said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal  from  thy 
brother,  thou  shalt  not  rob  any  of  thy 
tribesmen,  thou  shalt  not  deprive  any  of 
thy  people  of  whatever  belongs  to  him." 
The  qualifying  and  limiting  element  of 
family,  tribe  and  people  has  entirely  dis- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  85 

appeared.  Ever}-  human  being,  be  he  a 
native  or  a  stranger,  has  an  inalienable 
right  to  his  possession.  To  violate  this 
cardinal  and  universal  right  amounts  to 
a  subversion  of  the  everlasting  founda- 
tions of  justice,  on  which  government  is 
established  among  the  children  of  men. 
In  societies  based  on  polytheistic  princi- 
ples of  religion  and  government,  theft, 
robber}-  and  fraud  are  regarded  as  crimes 
only  if  committed  within  the  commun- 
ity. To  take  away  from  a  stranger  his 
property,  his  wife  and  his  children,  is  not 
considered  reprehensible  but  rather  mer- 
itorious, and  is  often  praised  as  patriotic. 
Whoever  stands  outside  the  pale  of  kin- 
ship, whoever  is  not  a  member  of  the 
community  by  the  natural  laws  of  blood 
relationship,  has  no  right  to  his  own  per- 
son and  to  his  own  property.  In  theory 
and  in  practice  all  pagan  societies  lived 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  active  or  passive 
mutual  hostility.  To  inflict  all  possible 
injury  on  the  life  and  property  of  all 
outsiders,  to  appropriate  their  labor  and 
accumulated  wealth  by  means  of  open 
violence  or  by  stratagem,  was  a  self-evi- 


86  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

dent  duty  incumbent  on  the  state  in  its 
collective  capacity  and  on  all  its  mem- 
bers, as  far  as  lay  in  their  individual 
power.  To  make  raids  into  the  territory 
of  unrelated  families  and  clans,  and  carry 
off  their  cattle,  their  women  and  chil- 
dren, was  and  still  is  a  legitimate  practice 
among  people  who  in  their  notions  and 
actions  are  swayed  by  the  primitive  con- 
ceptions of  the  social  bond.  Stealing 
from  strangers,  robbing  foreigners,  is  ap- 
proved by  conscience  whether  the  acts  of 
spoliation  are  done  on  a  large  scale  by 
the  whole  people  or  by  individuals  pilfer- 
ing, cheating  and  defrauding  in  a  small 
way  for  their  own  private  benefit. 

The  idea  of  an  indestructible  right  to 
life  and  property,  to  all  joys  and  gifts 
earned  by  labor,  the  idea  of  a  divine  right 
inherent  in  all  human  beings  by  virtue 
of  their  being  ethical  personalities,  was 
unknown  to  the  pagans  of  the  dead  past. 
Such  an  idea  is  inconceivable  also  to  the 
pagans  of  our  own  day,  who  may  call 
themselves  Christians,  or  Israelites,  or 
Mohammedans,  but  whose  modes  of  feel- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  87 

ing,  habits  of  thought  and  ways  of  action 
are  those  of  idolatrous  barbarians. 

But  this  very  idea  lives  and  proclaims 
itself  with  no  uncertain  sound  in  the  Ten 
Commandments.  Thou  shalt  not  steal 
from,  thou  shalt  not  rob,  nor  defraud  any 
human  being.  Sacred,  hedged  around 
by  the  adamantine  will  and  law  of  the 
Eternal,  is  the  life  and  possession  of  every 
man.  Ask  not,  like  the  savage  and  bar- 
barian, "  Who  was  thy  father  and  who  thy 
mother?  From  what  kinship  art  thou 
sprung?  What  people  has  given  thee 
birth?  The  face  and  features  and  color 
of  what  race  dost  thou  bear?  What 
community  claims  thy  allegiance?  "  Ask 
not,  uln  what  God  believest  thou?  By 
what  name  dost  thou  invoke  the  power 
divine,  that  is  high  and  exalted  above 
man's  comprehension?"  Mete  not  out 
justice  and  right  to  man  according  to  such 
distinctions.  Let  every  man  be  a  full 
man  and  brother  to  thee.  Reverence  the 
divine  rights  of  humanity  in  every  hu- 
man being.  Touch  not  with  a  plunder- 
ing hand,  with  the  itching  palm  of  fraud, 


88  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

aught  that  belongs  to  thy  fellow-man. 
Let  not  the  strong  despoil  the  weak.  Let 
not  the  cunning  steal  the  wages  of  the 
hireling.  Let  not  the  powerful  contrive 
t®  live  on  the  fruits  of  other  men's  labor. 
All  manner  of  dishonest  dealing,  diverse 
weights,  and  false  measures,  overreaching 
the  unwary,  tricking  the  ignorant  out  of 
his  earnings  and  savings,  are  rebellions 
against  the  Judge  and  Lord  of  mankind  ; 
they  are  crimes  against  the  majesty  of 
justice  which  dwells  in  every  human  soul. 
He  misses  the  true  meaning  and  purpose 
of  the  religion  of  Moses  who  fails  to 
understand  the  new  ideal  of  justice  brought 
into  the  world  by  Yahvism.  It  throws 
the  shield  of  the  Supreme  Being,  of  the 
highest  moral  authority,  around  the  indi- 
vidual rights  and  interests  of  the  hum- 
blest and  meanest  of  mortals.  Doing 
wrong  to  the  least  of  the  children  of  men 
is  making  war  upon  the  kingdom  of  God. 
If  there  is  in  a  community  but  one 
man,  be  he  a  native  or  a  stranger,  who  is 
despoiled  of  his  substance,  and  cannot 
obtain  redress  before  the  tribunal  and 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  89 

conscience  of  the  society,  that  community 
harbors  what  is  the  abomination  of  abom- 
inations to  Yahve.  It  is  already  breaking 
the  covenant  of  righteousness  and  is  in  a 
state  of  apostasy  from  him.  Since  every 
human  soul  is  a  reflection  of  the  Infinite 
Spirit,  and  stands  in  direct  ethical  rela- 
tions to  him,  every  infraction  of  the 
rights  of  any  individual,  be  it  to  his  per- 
son or  to  his  possession,  is  sin  and  rebel- 
lion against  God.  Justice  is  the  bond  of 
union  between  man  and  man,  justice  is 
the  spiritual  life-principle  of  the  common- 
wealth, by  which  all  its  members  are 
merged  into  a  higher  unity,  and  by  which 
human  government  manifests  itself  as  di- 
vine government.  Woe  to  him  to  whose 
hands  cling  unlawful  gain !  Woe  to  him 
who  builds  his  house  with  ill-gotten  gold! 
While  he  is  erecting  for  himself  edifices 
full  of  violence  and  is  gathering  treasures 
of  iniquity,  he  is  tearing  down  the  temple 
of  divine  justice,  and  loosening  the  bands 
which  hold  society  together.  Though 
he  establish  himself  on  a  rock,  the  hand 
of  omnipotent  justice  will  drag  him 


90  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

down;  though  he  hide  himself  in  secret 
places,  inexorable  retribution  will  find 
him  and  make  his  shame  and  wickedness 
manifest  to  all. 

i— THE  SACRED   RIGHTS  OF  CHARACTER. 

"Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness 
against  thy  neighbor."  This  command- 
ment is  intimately  connected  with  the 
preceding  ones,  and  forms  an  ascending 
part  in  the  progressive  unfolding  of  the 
ethics  and  religion  of  Moses.  Justice  is 
far  more  than  mere  refraining  from  acts 
of  theft  and  robbery.  Merely  to  abstain 
from  shedding  the  blood  of  human  be- 
ings does  not  satisfy  the  larger  demands 
of  righteousness.  There  is  in  man  far 
more  than  his  blood,-  than  his  physical 
life.  He  has  possessions  far  more  precious 
than  material  goods.  He  is  an  ethical 
personality.  He  is  a  spiritual  being  akin 
to  the  Infinite  Spirit.  He  stands  in  di- 
rect and  indissoluble  relations  to  the  holy 
and  perfect  God.  Every  individual  con- 
tains within  himself  and  represents  more 
or  less  the  infinite  moral  dignity  of  God 
and  humanity.  The  character  of  every 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  91 

fellow-man  of  thine  is  invested  with 
sacred  and  inviolable  rights.  The  divine 
majesty  of  reason,  celestial  and  human, 
dwells  within  him.  The  powers  of  moral 
freedom  make  him  god-like.  Breathe 
not,  therefore,  a  lying  word  against  thy 
fellow-man.  If  thou  bear  false  witness 
against  thy  neighbor  thou  committest  a 
crime  against  his  moral  dignity  and 
against  thine  own,  thou  killest  the  spirit 
of  justice,  thou  robbest  him  of  the  very 
breath  of  life,  of  his  honor.  In  bearing 
false  witness  against  thy  neighbor  thou 
grievously  offendest  the  Almighty  and 
Perfect  God,  who  is  truth  incorruptible, 
who  has  established  all  human  relations, 
universal  and  personal,  on  the  foundation 
of  truth.  Falsehood  uttered  against  any 
human  being  is  an  insult  to  the  divinity 
which  hedges  him  about.  The  moral 
essence  of  man  is  truth  unswerving  to- 
ward all  men,  sympathy  strong  as  death 
with  all  that  is  good  and  true  in  the  past 
and  in  the  present.  The  highest  knowl- 
edge is  the  knowledge  of  man  ;  the  holi- 
est and  most  valuable  truth  is  that  which 
concerns  the  character,  the  goodness,  and 


92 


THE    RELIGION   OF    MOSES. 


rights  of  our  fellow-men.  To  distort  and 
falsify  the  doings,  intentions,  and  moral 
qualities  of  any  person  or  group  of  per- 
sons, to  calumniate  with'  lying  lips  indi- 
viduals, peoples,  races,  or  churches,  is 
rebellion  against  God,  is  spiritual  murder 
against  man,  is  self-abasement  the  most 
heinous,  is  apostasy  from  the  soul  of 
humanity. 

Yet  bearing  false  witness  against  their 
fellow-men  is  the  besetting  sin  of  man- 
kind, is  the  immoral  habit  of  feeling  and 
thought  inherited  from  pagan  ancestors. 
From  the  silly  gossip,  backbiting  his 
neighbor,  to  the  solemn  historian  and  om- 
nicient  philosopher,  writing  with  an  air 
of  infallibility  and  passing  absolute  judg- 
ments on  whole  nations  and  epochs,  false 
witness  is  habitually  borne  against  the 
living  and  the  dead,  against  peoples  and 
against  whole  races,  in  a  most  reckless 
and  blasphemous  way.  Only  a  few  noble 
minds  show  a  strong  desire  to  penetrate 
to  the  core  of  truth  regarding  the  life,  the 
acts  and  motives  of  their  fellow-men. 
Small  indeed  is  the  number  of  those  who 
brush  aside  all  prejudices,  traditional  mis- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  93 

conceptions  and  calumnies,  and  try  to  do 
ample  justice  to  the  character  and  the 
merits  of  people  of  different  lineage  and 
faith.  A  bitter  and  relentless  war  of 
inisjndgments  is  waged  by  all  against  all. 
The  state  of  perpetual  warfare  of  kinship 
against  kinship,  of  tribe  against  tribe,  of 
people  against  people,  of  religion  against 
religion,  has  but  shifted  its  ground  and 
assumed  a  different  name. 

But  it  has  not  changed  its  nature  nor 
is  it  less  baneful  in  its  effects.  Instead  of 
using  javelins,  swords  and  bows  to  pierce 
the  flesh,  the  poisoned  arrows  of  malice 
and  the  daggers  of  calumny  are  brought 
into  play,  to  inflict  incurable  wounds  on 
the  hearts  of  fellow-men. 

The  parent  causes  of  both  kinds  of 
hostility  and  warfare  are  essentially  the 
same.  The  savage,  the  pagan,  regarded 
every  man  not  bound  to  him  by  the  ties 
of  kinship  and  religion,  as  standing  out- 
side the  pale  of  law  and  right — outside 
the  sacred  precincts  of  social  and  personal 
fellowship.  All  sympathy,  all  love,  all 
the  forces  of  unselfishness,  all  the  ele- 
ments of  truth  and  justice  were  exclu- 


94  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

sively  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the  society 
circumscribed  by  the  limits  of  common 
descent  and  worship.  Whoever  lived  out- 
side that  narrow  circle  was  viewed  with 
hostility  and  suspicion ;  was  met  with 
hatred,  and  pursued  with  all  weapons, 
material  and  mental — with  cunning, 
lying,  calumny  and  malice.  The  more 
the  outsider  is  injured  the  better  for  those 
who  are  inside ;  the  lower  the  outsider 
can  be  degraded  the  higher  the  level  of 
those  who  are  inside  the  community. 
The  same  brutal,  heathenish  spirit  still 
holds  sway  over  the  minds  of  most  mod- 
ern men.  Truth,  justice,  and  love  for 
those  within  the  pale  of  your  family, 
your  state,  your  race  and  church,  but  ju- 
dicial blindness,  misrepresentation,  falsi- 
fication of  facts,  calumnies  and  sneers  for 
those  who  do  not  dwell  within  the  sacred 
circle  of  that  special  community. 

A  blush  of  shame  mantles  the  cheek 
when  one  recalls  the  innumerable  false- 
hoods, wilful,  malicious,  envenomed, 
which  man  has  these  many  thousands  of 
years  been  uttering  against  man.  The 
genius  of  mankind  bows  his  head  in 


THE   RELIGION  OF   MOSES.  95 

shame  on  remembering  the  countless  cal- 
umnies and  lies,  loveless,  inhuman,  which 
nation  has  forged  against  nation,  race 
against  race,  religion  against  religion ! 
Oh,  perverse  man !  Art  thou  not  thyself 
degraded  if  thy  remotest  fellow-man  is 
degraded  ?  Canst  thou,  by  the  power  of 
slander  and  lying,  break  up  the  eternal 
spiritual  unity,  which  binds  thee  to  all 
men,  to  all  races,  and  times  ?  Canst  thou 
put  a  sea  of  enmity,  hatred  and  untruth 
between  thee  and  thy  neighbor  who  is 
not  of  thy  blood  and  sect  ?  Canst  thou 
baffle  and  defeat  the  omnipotent  God, 
who  abides  in  thee  and  in  him,  and  who 
has  chained  thee  to  all  men  with  the  un- 
breakable chain  of  spiritual  brotherhood  ? 
Canst  thou  drag  down  thy  brother,  whom 
thou  callest  a  stranger  ?  Canst  thou  pull 
him  down  with  cords  of  falsehood  from 
the  high  pedestal  of  his  moral  dignity 
without  dragging  thyself  down  at  the 
same  time?  If  thou  bearest  false  wit- 
ness against  thy  neighbor,  thou  bearest 
false  witness  against  thyself.  Every  stain 
thou  hast  wrought  with  malice  prepense 
upon  the  character  of  a  fellow-man  is  an 


96  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ineffaceable  stain  upon  thy  own  soul. 
Thou  risest  with  his  rise,  thou  fallest 
with  his  fall.  His  corruption  is  also  thy 
own  corruption ;  his  glory  is  also  thy 
triumph.  Thou  sharest  in  his  guilt ;  thou 
hast  part  in  his  merits.  Thou  art  re- 
sponsible for  his  sins  ;  thou  art  glorified 
through  his  virtues.  For  every  base  and 
false  word  uttered  against  any  man,  any 
people,  race,  sect,  thou  shalt  be  called  to 
account  by  all  generations  and  times,  by 
all  powers  divine  and  human.  For  all  men 
are  members  of  one  great  and  immortal 
being,  of  spiritual  humanity,  which  lives,, 
moves  and  has  its  growing  life  in  Yahve, 
the  infinite  and  holy  God,  the  perfect, 
just  and  holy  Spirit. 

k — INWARD   MORALITY. 

The  Tenth  Commandment,  "Thou 
shalt  not  covet  anything  that  is  thy 
neighbor's,"  rounds  off  and  completes 
the  ethics  of  Yahvisrn.  It  is  in  a  sense 
the  highest  and  most  perfect  expression 
of  its  moral  ideas.  It  marks  a  step  of 
immeasurable  significance  beyond  the 
ethics  of  paganism.  "  Thou  shalt  not 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  97 

desire  anything  that  belongs  to  thy  neigh- 
bor." For  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  mankind  inward  morality  is  required, 
righteousness  in  thought  and  feeling  is 
enjoined  as  much  as  justice  in  words  and 
deeds.  There  shall  be  no  covetousness 
lurking  in  the  secret  folds  of  the  heart. 
Glory  not  in  the  cleanness  of  thy  hands 
if  thy  heart  be  full  of  dishonest  desires. 
Boast  not  to  thyself  saying  :  "  I  am  just, 
I  am  upright,  no  unlawful  gain  clings  to 
my  hands  ;  in  getting  my  wealth  I  have 
violated  none  of  the  laws  of  the  land." 
If  thy  honesty  is  not  born  of  thy  own 
incorruptible  soul,  if  thou  art  not  guided 
in  thy  dealings  with  all  thy  fellow-men 
by  eternal  laws  engraved  upon  the  tablets 
of  thy  own  heart,  thy  honesty  and  integ- 
rity go  for  naught ;  they  are  mere  husks, 
and  contain  not  the  living  essence  of  jus- 
tice. The  outward  man,  his  visible  acts 
and  utterances,  may  bear  the  semblance 
of  probity,  yet  the  inward  man  may  be  a 
thief  and  robber.  A  man  may  regret- 
fully bow  his  head  before  the  pitiless 
majesty  of  the  law  ;  he  may  dread  the 
anger  and  scorn  of  society  ;  the  threat- 


98  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

ening  eye  and  uplifted  hand  of  retribu- 
tion may  cow  him  into  reluctant  submis- 
sion. Shrewdly,  selfishly  computing  his 
own  interests,  he  yields  obedience  to  the 
mandates  of  justice.  Yet  he  is  but  a 
calculating  usurer  of  honesty.  For  his 
heart  is  lawless,  greedy,  grasping.  The 
inner  man  is  a  primeval  savage,  with  all 
the  untamed  instincts  of  brute  selfish- 
ness. In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  recog- 
nizes his  own  interests  as  the  supreme 
law.  Were  the  external  coercive  social 
forces  and  punishments  withdrawn,  he 
would  steal  the  substance  of  the  widow 
and  the  orphan,  he  would  defraud  the 
hireling  of  his  wages,  and  rob  his  very 
brother  and  the  friend  of  his  bosom  of 
his  possessions.  Vast  numbers  of  such 
men  are  found  in  every  land  under  the 
sun.  They  may  call  themselves  worship- 
ers of  the  God  of  justice  ;  they  may  pro- 
claim themselves  followers  of  the  proph- 
ets of  righteousness,  but  their  heart  is 
like  unto  a  den  of  thieves.  Daily  and 
hourly  they  commit  acts  of  robbery  and 
spoliation  in  thought  and  desire.  If  livid 
envy  sits  brooding  in  the  inner  chambers 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  99 

of  a  man's  soul,  he  is  a  brother  to  the 
thief,  he  is  as  truly  a  robber  as  the  high- 
wayman. For  the  latter  there  may  be 
some  palliation.  He  may  be  one  of  the 
children  of  ignorance,  poverty  and  neg- 
lect. But  the  envious  and  covetous  man 
is  agitated  by  his  own  vicious  and  ava- 
ricious impulses.  Though  he  dwell  in  a 
house  of  plenty,  he  consumes  himself 
with  grief  on  beholding  the  costlier 
dwelling-place  of  his  neighbor.  Though 
all  things  prosper  in  his  hands,  his  in- 
satiable eyes  would  fain  devour  all  the 
wealth  that  belongs  to  his  fellow-men. 

Are  not  base  feelings  and  malignant 
thoughts  as  wicked  as  evil  deeds  ?  Nay, 
vile  feelings  are  the  roots  of  all  wicked- 
ness. Envious  thoughts  are  .the  fatal 
tree  which  brings  forth  the  deadly  fruit 
of  inhumanity,  of  cruel  violence,  of  per- 
secution, of  man's  demon-fury  against  his 
brother,  of  envenomed  social  strife,  of 
pernicious  wars  pitting  nation  against 
nation.  Covetousness  and  envy  are  the 
mothers  of  the  furies  that  array  class 
against  class,  incite  nations,  boastful  of 
their  advanced  civilization,  to  compass 


IOO  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

one  another's  political  and  economic 
ruin.  They  inflame  race  against  race 
with  savage  hatred,  and  fill  the  adherents 
of  one  creed  with  merciless  aversion  to 
the  adherents  of  other  religions.  It  is 
covetousness  and  envy  that  cause  the 
lives  of  so  many  men  to  be  glaring  con- 
tradictions and  blasphemous  lies.  With 
hypocritical  lips  they  profess  the  religion 
of  love  and  the  ethics  of  universal  hu- 
manity. But  their  heart  is  a  stranger  to 
their  lip-deep  professions ;  their  soul  is 
full  of  inhuman  antipathies.  The  pros- 
perity of  those  who  are  not  of  their  own 
race  and  faith  arouses  in  them  the  ma- 
lignant emotions  which  their  pagan  fore- 
fathers entertained  for  all  strangers.  The 
sight  of  wealth  possessed  by  people  who 
are  not  of  their  blood  excites  their  cupid- 
ity and  envy  to  a  pitch  of  frenzy.  The 
covetousness  of  their  heart  quickens  all 
the  immoral  forces  of  their  unregenerate 
nature  into  baleful  activity.  They  would 
fain  strip  those  whom  their  soul  hates  as 
aliens  of  all  their  possessions,  of  their 
last  garments,  drive  them  as  beggars 
from  their  homes  and  make  them  wan- 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  IOI 

dering  outlaws  and  outcasts.  Envy  makes 
them  inhuman,  indifferent  to  the  cries 
and  sufferings  of  those  they  malign  and 
persecute,  renders  them  more  brutal  and 
callous  than  brutes.  The  spirit  of  the 
Ten  Commandments  has  not  spiritualized 
their  inner  life,  has  not  transformed  and 
regenerated  their  heart.  They  know  not 
what  inward  morality,  what  soul-born 
righteousness  means. 

There  is  but  one  principle  which,  if 
fully  realized  and  translated  into  feelings, 
will  redeem  man  from  the  covetous 
promptings  and  the  greedy  passions  of 
egotism.  It  is  the  central  and  all-domi- 
nating idea  of  Yahvism,  that  all  men 
have  their  common  and  highest  life  in 
the  unfolding  life  of  God,  that  all  human 
beings  form  a  spiritual  and  indestructible 
unity  in  the  holy  will  and  love  of  the 
Supreme  Being. 

How  can  I  be  only  for  myself,  if  I 
realize  that  all  men,  near  and  far,  are 
part  and  parcel  of  my  own  being  ?  How 
can  I  cherish  a  desire  to  lay  a  grasping 
hand  upon  the  wealth  of  others,  how  can 
I  feel  pained  by  the  blessings  accruing 


IO2  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

to  others,  if  I  feel  and  know  that  I  am 
bound  to  all  generations  by  the  ties  of 
our  spiritual  kinship,  by  the  identity  of 
our  soul's  deathless  essence  in  the  eternal 
and  all-embracing  life  of  the  universal 
spirit  ?  If  I  believe  with  all  my  heart  in 
the  absolute  unity,  spirituality  and  per- 
fection of  God,  and  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence, believe  also  in  the  spiritual  one- 
ness of  humanity,  in  the  ethical  brother- 
hood of  all  men,  in  the  covenant  of  right- 
eousness between  mankind  and  the  Eter- 
nal, my  self-love  must  needs  develop  and 
expand  into  universal  love,  the  happiness 
of  myself  must  seek  satisfaction  in  the 
happiness  of  all  my  fellow-men,  and  the 
rights  of  every  person  must  be  realized 
by  me  as  my  own  inviolable  divine  right. 
The  cardinal  principle  of  morality, "  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  flows 
of  necessity  from  the  cardinal  doctrine 
of  Yahvism.  "  Yahve,  our  God,  is  one." 
The  great  seers  and  teachers  of  Yahvismr 
have  in  their  own  soul,  aspiring  after  a 
godlike  life,  realized  the  vital  connection 
between  those  two  universal  truths.  They 
proclaimed  their  own  heart's  experience, 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  103 

that  the  love  of  mankind  is  the  perfect 
fruit  of  the  love  of  God.  The  fear  of 
God  is  indeed  the  beginning  of  wisdom, 
of  that  wisdom  which  abides  in  the  holy  of 
holies  of  the  heart  as  a  humanizing  power 
making  for  inward  morality,  of  the  wis- 
dom which  walks  abreast  with  truth, 
justice  and  love,  which  declines  to  sepa- 
rate any  man  from  the  fellowship  of  the 
soul,  and  divides  not  man  from  man  ac- 
cording to  race  and  creed. 

"Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's 
wife."  Unholy  desires  are  defilement 
and  corruption,  even  though,  cowed  by 
fear  of  social  condemnation  and  public 
contempt,  they  are  not  given  free  scope 
to  translate  themselves  into  base  deeds. 
L,et  not  lustful  wishes  and  thoughts  revel 
in  the  hiding-places  of  thy  soul.  The 
fountain  of  all  utterances  and  activities, 
the  heart  from  which  are  all  the  issues  of 
life,  must  be  kept  pure,  or  all  else  will  be 
impure,  will  be  tainted  to  its  core  and 
contaminated  before  it  ripens  into  visible 
acts  and  facts.  The  seat  of  good  and 
evil,  of  moral  worth  and  worthlessness, 
is  in  the  soul.  Though  thy  outward 


104  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

conduct,  thy  palpable  life,  be  as  white  as 
snow,  yet  if  thy  heart  is  black  with  sin- 
ful cravings  thou  art  accursed  within  thy 
innermost  being,  thou  hast  fallen  away 
from  thy  spiritual  self,  thou  art  a  sac- 
rilegious traitor  to  thy  own  moral  dig- 
nity. Thou  hast  broken  the  covenant  of 
holiness,  which  is  to  make  man  but  a 
little  less  than  a  god.  Thy  conscience, 
incorruptible  despite  thy  inward  hypoc- 
risy, tears  from  thy  brow  the  crown  of 
humanity  and  banishes  thee  from  the 
presence  of  Yahve,  the  perfect  and  holy 
one.  The  moral  life  is  not  something 
mechanical;  it  does  not  consist  in  craven 
submission  to  a  will  and  an  authority 
which  resides  in  fearful  majesty  outside 
the  soul  of  man,  and  is  not  akin  to  nor 
communes  with  his  spiritual  nature.  If 
thy  virtue  is  but  the  offspring  of  coward- 
ice, if  it  is  wholly  dictated  by  fear  of 
heavenly  or  human  punishments,  if  the 
motive  of  thy  goodness  is  social  honor 
and  the  praise  of  men,  thou  shalt  have  no 
reward  for  thy  righteous  doings.  Thy 
virtuous  deeds  may  go  forth  and  work 
good  in  the  world,  but  they  are  not  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  105 

children  of  thy  soul.  Thou  hast  no  share 
in  their  merit.  They  shall  not  be  counted 
to  thee  for  righteousness.  The  value  of 
all  good  works  consists  in  the  moral  mo- 
tive, in  the  good-will,  in  the  love  which 
has  given  them  birth.  For  man  is  a 
spiritual,  an  ethical  personality.  Herein 
consists  his  glory,  his  eternal  kinship 
with  the  Most  High.  His  spiritual  life, 
his  inward  morality,  is  therefore  of  infi- 
nite importance.  Hence  the  gentlest 
stirrings  of  the  heart,  the  most  fleeting 
thoughts  should  be  under  the  control  of 
the  divine  laws  of  justice,  purity  and 
mercy. 


IV. 

PAGAN   AND   MOSAIC   ETHICS 
CONTRASTED. 

Pagan  Morality  Exclusively  Social  Morality. 

THE  transformation  of  morality  from 
mere  outward  conformity  to  social  laws 
into  an  inward  spiritual  condition,  from 
mechanical  obedience  to  an  external  au- 
thority into  a  spontaneous  self-manifes- 
tation of  the  soul,  is  the  crowning  glory 
of  Yahvism.  It  gave  to  ethics  a  new 
and  indestructible  vital  principle.  It 
created  the  new  and  ideal  morality  which 
has  its  source  of  life  in  the  consciousness 
and  conscience  of  the  individual  soul. 
Pre-Yahvistic  morality  was  exclusively 
social  morality.  The  individual  as  such 
was  not  recognized  by  ancient  society, 
and  played  no  part  in  it.  The  life,  the 
growth  and  prosperity  of  the  community 
was  everything  ;  the  individual  man,  not 
to  speak  of  the  individual  woman,  dwin- 
dled into  insignificance.  The  very  con- 
ception of  individuality,  of  inviolable 


THE  REUGION   OF   MOSES.  107 

individual  rights  and  duties,  the  very 
idea  of  a  moral  personality,  had  as  yet 
no  existence.  The  individual  was  wholly 
merged  into  and  lost  in  the  kinship  ;  or 
rather,  he  had  not  yet  emerged  and  be- 
come differentiated  from  the  community. 
The  family  was  the  smallest  and  most 
compact  unit.  It  was  the  primal  individ- 
ual. All  its  living  and  all  its  dead  mem- 
bers were  part  of  it,  subordinate  parts 
subserving  the  ends  of  the  whole  organ- 
ism. Throughout  the  whole  chain  of  its 
generations  the  family  had  but  one  blood, 
one  life,  one  being,  one  body,  of  which 
the  individuals  were  mere  cells,  which 
grew,  decayed  and  died,  to  make  room 
for  other  new-born  human  cells.  The 
family  had  its  fountain-head  in  the  family 
god.  In  him  it  lived,  moved  and  had  its 
being.  All  its  successive  generations 
flowed  from  him,  and  returned  to  him  to 
emerge  again  from  him  in  new  births. 
The  clan,  the  tribe,  the  people,  only  re- 
produced on  an  ever  larger  scale  and  in 
an  increasingly  complex  manner  the  type 
of  the  family,  and  were  determined  by 


108  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

the  same  principles  of  organization  and 
conduct.  The  social  organism,  large  or 
small,  invariably  absorbed  the  lives,  the 
interests  and  the  conduct  of  the  individ- 
uals forming  its  component  parts.  The 
personal  welfare  of  the  human  units 
making  up  the  social  body  was  not  con- 
sidered. Their  desires  and  preferences 
were  not  consulted.  It  was  not  asked, 
what  is  most  conducive  to  the  happiness 
of  the  individual.  The  nature  of  virtue 
was  not  denned  in  accordance  with  the 
spiritual  nature,  nor  derived  from  the 
moral  wants  of  the  individual  citizen. 
The  aim  of  virtue  was  not  the  good  of 
the  individual,  not  the  unfolding  of  his 
varied  powers,  not  his  attainment  of  per- 
fection, not  his  material  well-being,  his 
enjoyment  of  the  largest  possible  amount 
of  pleasure,  and  his  greatest  possible 
freedom  from  pain.  The  good  of  the 
corporate  body  was  the  sole  motive  and 
purpose  of  all  actions  regarded  as  moral 
and  praiseworthy.  Deeds,  endeavors  and 
aspirations  which  make  for  the  self-pres- 
ervation, the  growth  and  power  of  the 
community,  were  alone  considered  moral, 


THE   RELIGION   OF  MOSES.  109 

virtuous,  divinely  willed  and  commanded. 
Morality  and  commonweal  were  identical 
ideas. 

Woe  to  the  individual  who  was  be-' 
lieved  to  be  an  obstacle  to  the  common 
good.  He  was  ruthlessly  cut  down,  he ' 
was  remorselessly  trampled  under  foot, 
though  there  was  no  guilt  on  his  hands 
and  no  intention  to  do  injury  to  society. 
Weak,  decrepit  or  crippled  children  were 
strangled  at  birth  or  exposed  in  forests 
or  on  mountain  tops,  to  die  of  hunger  or 
cold  or  to  be-  devoured  by  wild  beasts. 
They  could  not  prove  useful  to  the  state 
as  warriors  or  mothers.  Hence,  they  had 
no  right  to  encumber  the  earth  as  use- 
less drones.  The  part  that  was  unable 
to  serve  the  whole  was  broken  to  pieces 
and  cast  away  as  rubbish.  The  inhuman 
practice  of  killing  old  people  who  had 
become  a  burden  on  the  active  part  of 
the  community,  a  practice  still  in  vogue 
among  numerous  savage  tribes,  prevailed 
among  many  of  the  ruder  ancient  socie- 
ties. The  children  themselves  were  re- 
quired to  put  their  aged  parents  to  death, 
or  to  carry  them  into  the  woods  with 


HO  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

only  a  pitcher  of  water  and  a  scanty 
amount  of  food  for  provision,  and  leave 
them  there  to  die  of  starvation  or  fall  a 
prey  to  prowling  beasts.  Only  the  recog- 
nition that  old  people,  though  useless  as 
fighters  and  laborers,  may  render  invalu- 
able service  by  their  experience  and  coun- 
sel, gradually  led  to  the  abolition  of  this 
dreadful  custom,  which  was  but  one  of 
the  consequences  flowing  from  the  rigor- 
ous and  pitiless  pagan  principle  of  social 
good  and  social  morality.  The  individ- 
ual had  to  obey  without  questioning, 
without  doubting,  the  laws  which  were 
believed  to  have  emanated  from  the  pre- 
siding and  ruling  parent  gods  of  the 
social  body.  If  he  refused  to  fulfill  all 
these  statutes,  ordinances  and  laws,  he 
was  crushed  by  the  community  without 
mercy.  He  was  either  executed  as  a  traitor 
and  a  rebel  against  the  gods,  or  a  punish- 
ment no  less  terrible  was  meted  out  to 
him ;  he  was  banished  from  the  commun- 
ity and  driven  forth  to  be  a  wanderer  and 
a  fugitive,  an  outcast  and  outlaw  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth,  so  that  whoever  found 
him  could  slay  him  with  impunity. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  Ill 

Thus  morality  in  primitive  societies 
consisted  exclusively  in  unquestioning 
compliance  on  the  part  of  the  individual 
with  all  the  laws  of  his  community.  All 
duties  were  mere  outward  obligations, 
enforced  with  irresistible  power  by  society 
in  the  name  of  the  divine  lords  of  the 
community.  Religion,  tradition,  customs 
and  public  opinion  held  the  individual 
as  in  a  vise,  from  which  he  could  not 
break  away.  He  submitted  to  authority, 
but  not  through  spontaneous  resolve.  He 
did  not  voluntarily  curb  his  passions  and 
sacrifice  his  personal  pleasure  and  inter- 
ests to  the  general  good.  He  was  not 
even  aware  that  he  possessed  individual 
rights  which  he  might  forego  for  the  sake 
of  the  public  welfare.  He  did  not  know 
that  he  was  a  self-centered  ethical  per- 
sonality. He  felt  himself  absolutely  iden- 
tified with  the  life,  wants  and  demands  of 
the  community.  He  could  no  more  think 
of  calling  into  question  the  binding  force 
of  the  social  laws  and  customs  surround- 
ing him  and  pressing  in  upon  him  on  all 
sides,  than  one  of  us  can  dream  of  jump- 
ing away  from  the  earth  and  leaping 


112  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

into  space.  There  existed  no  individual 
personalities,  but  social  bodies.  There 
was  no  private  morality,  but  public  moral- 
ity. There  were  no  universal  laws,  but 
social  laws  of  conduct.  There  were  as 
many  codes  of  ethics  as  there  were  com- 
munities and  ruling  divinities.  Every 
member  of  society  yielded  ready  obedience 
to  its  statutes,  but  not  willingly,  because 
he  had  no  will  of  his  own.  There  was  no 
private  conscience,  but  only  a  public  con- 
science. The  feelings  and  thoughts,  the 
inner  life,  the  spiritual  processes  going  on 
in  the  individual  soul  were  matters  of  no 
moment.  They  were  not  appealed  to  as 
the  ultimate  authority  in  moral  judg- 
ments, nor  were  they  consciously  allowed 
to  have  the  least  voice  and  influence  in 
the  activities  and  movements  of  the  cor- 
porate life  of  the  commonwealth.  Such 
a  morality  was  exceedingly  defective. 
While  it  powerfully  tended  to  foster  so- 
cial unity  and  coherence,  it  was,  after  all, 
but  a  sort  of  mechanical  and  external 
morality,  and  was  far  from  being  soul- 
born  virtue  and  self-denial.  "  There  can 
be  no  altruism  in  any  high  sense,  where 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  113 

there  is  no  little  room  left  for  egoism,  and 
to  be  truly  unselfish  man  must  know  in 
all  the  fullness  of  its  meaning  what  it  is 
to  be  a  self." 

Whenever,  in  the  course  of  intellect- 
ual development,  the  individual  awoke 
from  the  slumber  of  ages  to  a  recognition 
of  his  dignity  and  importance,  whenever 
he  came  to  realize  himself  as  the  center, 
measure  and  purpose  of  all  things  and  all 
activities,  such  an  awakening  was  fear- 
ful in  its  consequences,  and  brought  on 
most  destructive  moral  and  social  up- 
heavals. The  growing  and  expanding 
individualities  burst  the  social  frame 
apart.  The  social  bonds,  rooted  in  kin- 
ship, and  the  public  laws  deriving  their 
authority  from  ancestral  gods,  melted 
away  under  the  fiery  stream  of  orirushing 
passionate  egoisms,  breaking  down  in  the- 
ory and  practice  all  moral  restraints.  The 
brutal  forces  of  despotism  had  then  to 
step  in,  and  by  sheer  mechanical  coercion 
prevent  the  disintegrating  body  politic 
from  being  resolved  into  its  centrifugal 
units.  Sooner  or.  later,  the  pagan  or 
primitive  theory  of  man,  of  kinship,  of 


114  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

society,  of  religion  and  government,  was 
bound  to  break  down  completely,  and 
carry  with  it  the  whole  social  fabric  rest- 
ing upon  it. 

The  Ethics  of  Moses  Primarily  Individualistic. 

It  was  only  with  the  moral  emanci- 
pation of  the  individual,  first  conceived 
and  promulgated  by  Moses,  that  genuine 
morality  and  genuine  religion  made  their 
appearance  in  the  world,  to  be  the  ani- 
mating and  upbuilding  principles  of  a 
monotheistic  humanity  and  civilization, 
which  will  endure  as  long  as  mankind 
will  have  life  on  earth. 

It  is  not  to  societies  but  to  individu- 
als that  the  law  divine  of  justice,  due 
to  all  men  as  their  inalienable  birthright, 
addresses  itself.  Thou  shalt  not  steal, 
thou  shalt  not  rob  nor  defraud  thy  fel- 
low-men, appeals  directly  to  every  indi- 
vidual soul  and  conscience  on  behalf  of 
every  individual,  whatever  his  descent 
and  social  affiliation.  The  religion  of 
ethical  Yahvism,  the  religion  of  Moses, 
did  not,  in  its  germs  and  beginnings,  grow 
out  of  the  life  of  a  nation.  It  was  not 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  115 

primarily  intended  to  prescribe  rules  of 
conduct  to  a  whole  people  and  regulate 
its  collective  life.  It  did  not  leave  the 
individual  in  the  background  as  an  insig- 
nificant being,  that  was  but  to  serve  the 
power  and  growth  and  well-being  of  the 
body  politic.  It  teaches  above  all  an 
individualistic  morality.  It  enjoins  as 
first  and  foremost  the  rights  and  duties 
of  the  individual  man  in  his  relations  to 
individual  men.  Every  commandment 
addresses  itself,  with  its  "  Thou  shalt," 
and  "Thou  shalt  not,"  to  the  individ- 
ual moral  consciousness  and  conscience. 
Yahvism  gave  birth  to  an  individualistic 
morality,  which  in  its  turn  became  the 
parent  of  a  national  morality.  The  eth- 
ics of  Yahvism  blossomed  forth  from  the 
soul  of  a  great  and  inspired  individual, 
from  the  genius  of  the  teacher  of  right- 
eousness. In  the  desert,  communing  for 
forty  long  years  with  the  Father  and 
Spirit  of  all,  Moses,  the  solitary  thinker 
and  lover  of  man,  stood  face  to  face  with 
eternal  justice  and  love.  All  alone  he 
wandered  and  mused,  without  a  clan  or 
tribe  around  him.  Nations,  states,  em- 


Il6  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

pires,  vanished  from  his  sight.  The 
lonely  prophet,  all  alone  with  his  flam- 
ing thoughts,  questioned  the  World-soul. 
Alone  he  wrestled  with  the  problems  of 
righteousness  and  mercy.  The  light 
streamed  into  his  soul  from  the  heart  of 
existence.  In  himself  he  experienced  the 
power  and  glory  and  blessedness  of  an 
individual  spirit  living  in  touch  and  har- 
mony with  the  Infinite  Spirit.  He 
learned  to  know  by  original  insight  and 
by  his  own  expanding  self  the  infinite 
dignity  of  a  human  soul.  The  truth  of 
truths  flashed  upon  him — that  Yahve  was 
not  the  God  of  a  tribe  and  a  nation,  but 
that  he  stands  in  direct  relation  to  every 
individual  man,  loving  him  and  vindica- 
ting his  rights  and  dignity  and  requiring 
justice  and  mercy  at  his  hand. 


V. 

YAHVISM  WAS  FROM   ITS  VERY 

BEGINNING  A  CONVERTING 

RELIGION. 

WITH  this  gospel  of  a  spiritual  mo- 
rality and  a  spiritual  religion,  the  hero  of 
humanity,  the  saviour  of  the  oppressed, 
appeared  before  those  he  had  redeemed 
from  degrading  bondage,  and  preached 
to  them  the  glad  tidings  of  the  infinite 
moral  dignity  of  man,  the  universal 
ethical  brotherhood  of  all  human  beings, 
the  oneness,  perfection  and  holiness  of 
Yahve,  in  whose  unity  all  souls,  all  races 
and  all  generations  are  united.  The 
original  ties  of  kinship  and  race  were 
torn  to  shreds,  the  belief  in  physical 
paternal  gods  was  destroyed  by  him,  and 
eternal  war  was  declared  against  the  as- 
sumed right  of  the  strong  to  rule  and  spoli- 
ate the  weak.  The  unifying,  cohesive  and 
vitalizing  powers  of  the  commonwealth, 
of  the  whole  people,  must  be  the  fear 
and  love  of  Yahve  ;  willing,  lawful  obe- 
dience to  his  wise  and  good  laws  and 


Il8  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

statutes,  the  spirituality  and  the  moral 
attributes  common  to  all,  the  justice  and 
mercy  of  all  souls  toward  all.  In  a  word, 
the  covenant  of  righteousness  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  bonds  of  kinship  and 
descent  as  the  all-sustaining,  all-embrac- 
ing, all-dignifying  principle  of  social  and 
national  unity. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  life  of  man- 
kind a  prophet  went  forth  to  convert  a 
multitude  of  men,  belonging  to  different 
kinships,  tribes,  and  races,  from  their  own 
low,  superstitious  and  polytheistic  beliefs, 
to  a  new  religion  ;  to  change  a  motley 
crowd  of  despised  fugitives  and  wander- 
ers into  a  missionary  people.  As  some 
fourteen  hundred  years  later  a  small  band 
of  Jewish  apostles  started  from  the  land 
of  Israel,  to  bring  all  the  heathen  nations 
of  the  known  world  into  the  fold  of  new- 
born Christianity,  to  teach  them  the  faith 
and  ethics  of  Jesus,  their  Teacher  and 
Master  ;  as  some  six  hundred  years  still 
later  the  prophet  Mohammed  converted 
all  the  idolatrous  tribes  of  Arabia  to  his 
own  religion,  to  the  monotheistic  faith 
of  Islam  ;  so  did  Moses,  their  prototype 


THE   RELIGION   OK   MOSES.  119 

and  spiritual  father,  the  fountain-head  of 
their  universal  ideas  and  ideals,  originate 
a  proselytizing  propagandist  religion,  so 
did  he  undertake  to  convert  to  Yahvism, 
the  religion  of  his  own  mighty  soul,  the 
heterogeneous  mass  of  people  whom  he 
had  succeeded  in  delivering  from  Egyp- 
tian slavery. 

ENVIRONMENTS  IN  THE  DESERT. 

What  a  tremendous  task  it  was  !  How 
beset  with  innumerable  difficulties,  which 
might  well  have  appeared  insurmount- 
able !  The  tribes  with  whom  he  was 
dealing,  whom  he  was  leading,  educating 
and  elevating,  had  no  fixed  abode,  had  no 
land  which  they  could  call  their  home. 
Under  the  impulse  given  to  them  by  the 
over-powering  genius  of  Moses,  they  had 
quit  the  fruitful  country  in  which  their 
forefathers  had  settled  several  hundred 
years  before,  and  were  looking  forward  to 
occupy  an  unknown  rich  country,  held 
out  to  them  by  their  leader  as  the  Land 
of  Promise.  In  the  meanwhile,  they 
were  wandering  through  desolate  regions, 
which  afforded  them  but  the  scantiest 


I2O  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

means  of  subsistence.  Such  unstable 
and  precarious  conditions  of  life  are  not 
favorable  to  the  growth  of  steady  habits 
of  thought  and  conduct ;  they  do  not 
tend  to  develop  permanent  currents  of 
noble  feelings,  such  as  were  required  for 
forming  a  community  after  the  highest 
principles  of  individual  and  social  moral- 
ity. Living  amid  the  joyless  uncertain- 
ties of  the  present,  and  feeding  on  great 
hopes,  the  emigrants  were  necessarily 
swayed  by  a  spirit  of  restlessness  and  ad- 
venture, and  could  not  help  oscillating 
between  the  extremes  of  unreasonable 
despair  and  over-wrought  enthusiasm. 
The  very  ground  seemed  to  be  shifting 
and  changing  underneath  their  feet. 
There  was  nothing  firm,  nothing  estab- 
lished from  of  old  upon  which  to  stand. 
All  the  past  they  had  left  behind.  They 
were  marching  toward  a  new  world,  pro- 
claimed by  their  prophet  to  be  a  better 
and  diviner  world. 

But  the  very  state  of  mind,  the  very 
circumstances,  which  to  the  dim  sight  of 
common  men  must  have  appeared  most 
unpropitious,  were  discerned  by  the  eye 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  121 

of  that  sovereign  genius  to  be  the  most 
favorable  conditions  for  sowing  in  human 
hearts  the  seeds  of  his  new  universal 
ideas,  for  laying  in  receptive  souls  the 
foundation  of  the  ideal  society  of  the 
future.  The  tremendous  convulsions 
through  which  they  had  passed,  the  rapid 
succession  of  marvelous  changes  which 
they  had  witnessed,  and  of  which  they 
had  themselves  been  an  active  part, 
tended  to  dissolve  the  old  and  fixed 
associations  of  ideas,  to  break  up  the 
ancient,  inherited  forms  of  belief,  to 
loosen  the  hold  of  immemorial  standards 
of  conduct  and  faith.  Thus  all  the  ele- 
ments and  forces  of  their  soul  were 
brought  into  a  state  of  restless  flow  and 
seething  motion.  Their  minds  were, 
therefore,  well  prepared  to  receive  the 
new  religious  ideas  and  the  spiritual 
ethics  of  Moses. 

In  times  of  intellectual  stagnancy  and 
crystallized  social  conditions,  only  a  few 
superior  minds  could  have  adapted  them- 
selves to  the  revolutionary  innovations 
in  matters  of  faith  and  morals  promul- 
gated by  Moses.  But  among  those  who 


122  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

had  traversed  the  wilderness  with  their 
mighty  leader  and  teacher,  and  had  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  mount  of  revelation, 
even  average  natures  were  able  to  adopt 
and  assimilate  to  themselves  the  new 
dispensation. 

One  of  the  most  important  results  of 
their  homeless  life  was  this,  that  the}' 
could  not  well  believe  Yahve  to  be  a 
local  god,  confined  to  a  certain  circum- 
scribed region  inhabited  by  his  people. 
They  were  in  a  sense  bound  to  conceive 
him  as  an  omnipresent  God,  attached  to 
no  local  habitation,  since  they,  his  wor- 
shipers, had  no  fixed  dwelling-place,  but 
were  constantly  shifting  their  ground 
and  pushing  forward,  to  conquer  another 
people's  territory  which  their  eyes  had 
never  seen. 

Moreover,  Yahvism  was  and  is  chiefly 
a  religion  for  the  poor  and  weak,  for  the 
persecuted  and  down-trodden.  Certainly 
no  class  of  men  was  better  fitted  to  un- 
derstand and  receive  the  gospel  of  deliv- 
erance from  injustice,  the  gospel  of  liberty 
and  human  dignity,  than  the  people  who 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  123 

had  for  ages  tasted  all  the  misery,  bit- 
terness and  degradation  of  Egyptian 
slavery. 

The  new  wine  had  to  be  poured  into 
new  bottles,  and  Moses  found  the  most 
receptive  new  bottles  among  those  he 
had  saved  from  Egyptian  bondage.  The 
extreme  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  suffi- 
ciency of  food  and  water  in  the  desert,  the 
numerous  hardships  and  privations  in- 
separable from  a  sojourn  in  the  wilder- 
ness for  those  not  to  the  manner  born, 
helped  to  deepen  the  sense  of  dependence 
on  and  trust  in  a  gracious  and  wise  Provi- 
dence. While  toiling  as  slaves  in  the 
fruitful  land  of  the  Nile  they  were  amply 
provided  by  their  masters  with  the  neces- 
saries of  life.  The  regularity  and,  one 
might  say,  the  certainty  of  abundant 
crops,  independent  of  the  rain  and  dew 
of  heaven,  had  hidden  from  them  the 
divine  miracle  of  daily  sustenance  and 
maintenance.  Bui  during  their  long 
migrations  through  the  desert  the}'  lived 
from  hand  to  mouth.  Daily  the  same 
wants  and  the  same  uncertainty  as  to 


124  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

how  to  satisfy  them  caused  them  to  turn 
their  eyes  in  prayer  to  Yahve,  the  giver 
of  all  blessings.  Daily  their  hearts 
thrilled  with  gratitude  toward  the  Lord 
on  rinding  unforeseen  means  of  subsist- 
ence. The  wonderful  deliverance  from 
great  dangers  and  difficulties  frequently 
wrought  by  Moses,  the  matchless  powers 
of  foresight  displayed  by  their  prophet 
leading  them  along  paths  never  trodden 
by  them  before,  caused  them  to  believe 
in  his  superhuman  wisdom,  and  accept 
his  teachings  and  declarations  as  divine 
revelations  and  divine  promises. 

During  their  pilgrimage  through  the 
desert  their  eyes  were  ever  turned  toward 
the  future,  toward  a  glorious  goal  shin- 
ing from  afar,  toward  the  land  of  hope 
and  promise.  Their  souls  dwelt  not  in 
the  present,  but  in  the  dreamland  of 
the  ideal.  The  ideal  was  ever  moving 
before  them  as  a  pillar  of  light,  beckon- 
ing, luring  them  onward  and  onward, 
away  from  the  dreary  real  toward  a 
brighter  and  better  existence,  that  was  to 
be.  In  this  state  of  eager  expectancy 
their  imagination  fondly  played  around 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  125 

things  yet  to  emerge,  around  blessings 
yet  to  blossom  forth.  They  were,  there- 
fore, in  a  proper  frame  of  mind  to  receive 
into  their  souls  and  to  absorb  Moses' 
ideals  of  faith  and  conduct,  the  ideals  of 
spiritual  humanity  embracing  all,  fusing 
and  transforming  all,  the  ideals  of  moral 
growth  and  grandeur,  ripening  to  fruits 
of  blessedness,  tending  to  peace  and  sal- 
vation universal. 

There  was  another  circumstance  which 
to  short-sighted  observers,  judging  the 
enterprises  of  genius  according  to  their 
narrow  analogies,  must  have  appeared 
fatal  to  the  vast  schemes  of  the  Hebrew 
master-builder.  The  masses  which  he 
had  delivered,  which  he  was  resolved,  to 
shape  into  a  spiritual  people,  were  inco- 
herent, incongruous,  heterogeneous.  Be- 
longing to  various  stocks  they  were  held 
together  by  no  ties  of  racial  affinities, 
nor  were  they  united  by  powerful  mem- 
ories of  a  long  continued  common  history. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  more  cohesive 
force  between  them  and  no  more  organic 
unity  in  them  than  in  the  sand-heaps 
drifted  together  by  the  caprice  of  the 


126  THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

desert  winds.  Yet  these  most  unpromising 
masses  were  recognized  by  Moses  as  the 
providentially  prepared  material,  fittest 
to  be  cast  in  a  new  mold,  to  be  formed 
into  a  unity  higher  than  known  hereto- 
fore, into  a  spiritual  national  unit}',  able 
to  resist  the  corroding  and  disintegrating 
influence  of  time,  able  to  attract  and  as- 
similate elements  of  the  most  varied  kind. 
No  firmly  organized  people,  with  all  its 
private  and  public  institutions  fully  de- 
veloped, with  innumerable  memories 
rooted  in  a  rich  and  glorious  past,  would 
have  proved  plastic  enough  to  receive 
the  stamp  of  Moses'  new  doctrines  and 
to  be  remodeled  in  accordance  with  the 
ethical  principles  of  Yahvism.  But  the 
raw  material  at  the  disposal  of  Moses, 
being  without  hardened  forms,  without  a 
fixed  mold,  without  resisting  memories, 
without  an  ancient  rigid  organization, 
was  of  wonderful  plasticity  and  pliancy. 
It  readily  lent  itself  to  his  lofty  pur- 
pose. Just  as  a  true  republic,  destined 
to  realize  on  the  grandest  scale  the  ideals 
of  Moses,  could  be  founded  only  on  the 
virgin  soil  of  America,  and  be  established 


THE    RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  I2/ 

by  men  who  had  previously  formed  no  peo- 
ple, and  had  gathered  from  all  the  ends 
and  races  of  the  Old  World,  so  conld  its 
prototype,  the  people  of  Israel,  be  evolved 
only  from  new  elements,  from  unorgan- 
ized parts,  and  welded  by  ideal  forces  into 
a  living  union  only  on  a  new  stage,  and 
started  on  its  career  only  in  the  midst  of 
an  entirely  new  environment.  What  the 
war  of  independence  is  to  the  Americans, 
the  deliverance  from  Egypt  was  to  the 
Israelites,  the  starting-point  of  their 
career,  the  inspiring  memory  and  motive 
power  of  their  whole  subsequent  history. 
Passionate  love  of  liberty,  hatred  of  tyr- 
anny, universal  justice,  broad  humanity, 
the  dignity  of  labor  and  the  moral  dig- 
nity of  sovereignty  of  the  individual  be- 
came to  both  peoples,  to  the  American 
and  to  the  Israelitish,  the  organizing  and 
propelling  forces  of  their  historic  life 
What  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  to  the  American  nation,  the  Ten 
Commandments  and  amplifying  laws, 
added  thereto  later,  were  to  the  people  of 
Moses. 


VI. 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE  LAND 
EAST  OF  THE  JORDAN. 

IN  spite  of  the  conditions  favoring 
the  work  of  Moses,  his  task  at  times 
seemed  to  surpass  the  powers  of  even 
that  heroic  man.  He  had  only  a  few 
superior  followers,  who  could  fully  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  his  religion.  His  own 
sons,  his  immediate  family  and  clan,  who 
formed  the  nucleus  of  what  came  to  be 
known  as  the  priestly  tribe  of  I/evi,  made 
up  the  spiritual  elite  of  the  people.  He 
could,  however,  entrust  to  them  only 
minor  parts  of  his  work.  The  chief 
functions  of  his  office  devolved  on  him. 
He  was  prophet,  lawgiver,  judge,  polit- 
ical niler  and  war  chief  in  one  person. 
He  elaborated  his  ideas  and  laws  and  per- 
sonally carried  them  into  execution.  He 
taught  and  enforced  them.  He  was  the 
leader  and  purveyor  of  his  people.  When 
he  was  absent  chaos  often  ensued.  The 
old  taint  of  idolatry,  the  taint  especially 

of   Egyptian  bull-worship,  reasserted  it- 

128 


THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES.  129 

self,  while  lie  was  away  dwelling  alone 
on  the  mountain,  meditating  the  great 
thoughts  of  his  quenchless  faith.  With 
severe  measures  he  succeeded  for  a  time 
in  stamping  out  that  pagan  worship. 
When  there  was  dearth  of  food  or  lack  of 
water,  the  desperate  people  clamored 
furiously  against  him  and  more  than 
once  he  was  afraid  of  being  stoned  by 
them.  When  he  thought  the  time  ripe 
for  advancing  boldly  into  the  coveted 
land,  they  lagged  behind  in  cowardice 
and  refused  to  follow.  When  he  deemed 
it  best  to  halt,  they  rushed  forward  in 
blind  audacity.  At  one  time  a  large  part 
of  the  people  resolved  to  return  to  Egypt 
and  put  their  head  once  more  under  the 
yoke  of  slavery,  in  order  to  eat  their  fill 
from  the  fleshpots  of  that  land.  His 
great  soul  was  often  full  of  grief  and  an- 
guish. His  heart  was  many  a  time  sick 
with  despair  even  unto  death.  The  black 
ingratitude  of  the  masses  often  made  him 
pray  to  God  to  take  his  life.  Yet  he  bat- 
tled on  heroically,  bearing  in  his  bosom 
the  people  of  his  love  and  sorrows,  bear- 
ing in  his  heart  a  new,  a  better  and  greater 


130  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

world.  After  years  of  infinite  toil  and 
struggle,  having  about  him  the  new  gen- 
eration brought  up  under  his  discipline, 
his  teachings  and  the  transforming  influ- 
ence of  his  inspiring  presence,  he  made 
a  dash  into  the  land  of  the  Amorites  east 
of  the  Jordan.  A  few  great  successfully- 
fought  battles  put  him  in  possession  of 
that  very  fruitful  land.  The  invaders 
rapidly  spread  over  the  conquered  terri- 
tory and  settled  in  the  midst  of  the 
native  population.  In  a  comparatively 
short  time  the  latter  blended  with  the 
conquerors,  increasing  the  power  and 
swelling  the  numbers  of  the  worshipers 
of  Yahve. 

There  was  soon  manifest  the  difference 
between  the  effects  of  pagan  conquest 
and  the  fruits  of  victories  won  by  the 
hosts  of  Yahve.  Heathen  conquerors, 
who  built  up  their  political  systems  on 
the  basis  of  kinship  and  tribal  gods,  had 
no  choice  but  to  destroy  or  to  enslave 
the  defeated  nations.  But  the  Israelites 
did  not  invade  Canaan  as  a  conquer- 
ing nation,  but  as  the  host  of  a  con- 
quering and  converting  religion.  Like 


THE    RELIGION    OF   MOSES.  131 

the  followers  of  Mohammed,  the  people 
of  Moses  went  forth  sword  in  hand  to 
win  new  homes,  and  to  proclaim  a  new 
faith — inviting,  urging  the  conquered 
population  to  embrace  the  religion  of 
Yahve,  the  almighty,  just  and  righteous 
God.  The  subdued  people,  who,  with 
the  loss  of  their  former  power  and  inde- 
pendence, necessarily  lost  faith  in  their 
own  ancestral  gods,  need  not  fall  a  prey 
to  spiritual  despair.  They  could  well 
range  themselves  under  the  banners  of 
Yahve  and  join  themselves  to  his  victo- 
rious people ;  for  he  was*  not  a  local  and 
tribal  divinity,  but  a  universal  and  al- 
mighty God,  the  God  of  all  men,  the 
Father  of  justice  and  mercy,  the  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth.  He  misses  the  inner- 
most meaning  of  the  history  of  Israel,  so 
different  from  all  purely  national  histo- 
ries, who  fails  to  realize  the  all-decisive, 
all-determining  fact,  that  Yahvism  cre- 
ated the  people  of  Israel,  and  in  all  times 
and  climes  went  on  with  magnetic  forces 
to  add  new  elements  from  various  nation- 
alities and  races,  incorporating  them  into 
the  living  body  of  the  church.  Light  is 


132  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 


beginning  to  dawn  on  unprejudiced  in- 
vestigators of  the  past,  whose  keen  intel- 
lectual and  moral  sympathies  make  them 
contemporaries  of  far-off  events.  The 
truth  is  revealing  itself  to  those  who 
strive  to  penetrate  through  inherited  dis- 
guises and  fictions  to  the  living  heart  of 
spiritual  realities.  They  have  come  to 
recognize  that  like  Buddhism,  Christian- 
ity and  Islamism,  Yahvism  made  its  ap- 
pearance in  the  world  as  a  universal 
religion,  as  a  church,  which  in  course  of 
time  formed  a  sort  of  nation,  a  people 
peculiar  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  is 
superficially  understood,  inasmuch  as  it 
was  in  most  vital  points  and  characteris- 
tics distinguished  from  all  nations  and 
states  organized  by  polytheistic  ideas  or 
purely  natural  forces. 

In  the  land  east  of  the  Jordan,  con- 
quered by  his  own  generalship  and  the 
prowess  of  his  followers,  Moses  lived  to 
see  the  first  auspicious  beginnings  of 
Israel's  growth  in  power  and  number. 
It  gained  through  steady  accretions  from 
the  native  population  who  wrere  won  over 


THE   RELIGION    OK   MOSES.  133 

to  his  ideas  of  spiritual  brotherhood  and 
universal  justice. 

THE  DEATH   OF  MOSES. 

Fain  would  the  great  prophet,  law- 
giver and  statesman  have  wished  to  cross 
the  Jordan  at  the  head  of  his  hosts,  and 
occupy  the  western  land,  in  order  to  es- 
tablish the  new  commonwealth  on  the 
principles  of  Yahvism.  He  was  sore 
afraid  that  his  work,  if  entrusted  to  other 
hands,  would  be  marred  by  unwisdom, 
and  receive  elements  of  heathen  corrup- 
tion at  the  critical  time,  when  it  required 
all  his  experience,  his  sagacity,  his  men- 
tal grasp,  firmness  and  authority,  to  be 
carried  to  a  successful  issue.  But  ex- 
treme old  age  had  overtaken  him,  telling 
him  that  the  end  was  nigh  to  come,  that 
the  time  had  arrived  for  him  to  lay  the 
heavy  burden  of  leadership  on  younger 
shoulders.  In  vain  the  unconquerable 
hero  struggled  to  conquer  also  this  foe. 
His  mind  and  heart  were  still  as  youthful 
and  vigorous  as  of  old.  His  prophetic  vis- 
ion was  still  undimmed.  His  powerful 


134        THE>  RELIGION  OF  MOSES. 

imagination  still  soared  to  the  dizziest 
heights  of  heaven  and  hovered  high  in 
the  purer  and  diviner  air  of  the  ideal. 
Flashes  of  world-illuming  thoughts  still 
burst  forth  from  his  light-enwrapped 
soul.  The  stream  of  immortal  poetry 
still  flowed  from  his  lips.  But  the  mortal 
body  ached  for  rest,  and  refused  to  tenant 
any  longer  the  mighty  spirit.  In  an  hour 
of  agony  the  prophet  of  righteousness 
and  the  lover  of  man  implored  the  Master 
of  life  to  vouchsafe  unto  him  but  a  few 
more  years,  in  order  to  bring  his  life-work 
to  a  crowning  end.  In  vain  !  The  di- 
vine fiat  had  gone  forth,  inexorable,  ir- 
revocable. Nature,  with  whom  the  pro- 
phet of  spirituality  had  so  long  wrestled, 
trying  to  wrench  the  •  scepter  of  power 
from  her  hand  and  discrown  her  as  man's 
divinity — nature  was  at  last  to  overcome 
what  was  material,  corruptible  and  mor- 
tal in  him.  He  bowed  his  head  in  hu- 
mility and  yielded  himself  to  the  unal- 
terable decree. 

In  the  presence  of  a  vast  assemblage 
he  laid  his  hands  on  the  head  of  his 
"greatest  disciple,  Joshua  ben  Nun,  and 


THE    UEUGION   OF   MOSES.  135 


consecrated  him  as  his  successor,  to  be 
the  judge  and  leader  of  Israel  in  war  and 
peace.  For  the  last  time  they  heard  the 
inspiring  voice  of  their  master.  His 
God-kissed  lips  chanted  his  farewell  song, 
a  prophetic  blessing  to  Israel,  in  a  strain 
so  exalted  and  soul-bewitching  that  the 
memory  thereof  has  lived  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  in  the  heart  of  Yahve's 
worshipers.  Then  he  went  forth  soli- 
tary to  meet  the  destiny  of  all  mortals. 
The  prophet  of  prophets  ascended  to 
the  top  of  Mount  Nebo,  the  Mount  of 
Prophecy.  He  surveyed  the  land  of  his 
promise,  which  his  feet  were  never  to 
tread.  He  looked  northward  as  far  as 
snow-clad  Lebanon.  His  eyes  viewed 
the  rolling  hills  and  plains  of  the  west, 
and  caught  the  sheen  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. He  turned  his  gaze  toward  the 
mountainous  southland  sloping  down  into 
the  desert.  He  cast  a  last  glance  upon 
the  country  which  his  arm  had  conquered. 
Then,  in  the  presence  of  the  silent  heav- 
ens and  the  breathing  earth,  the  great 
luminary  set,  unseen  of  man.  And  no 
man  knows  his  grave  to  this  day. 


136  THE   RELIGION   OF   MOSES. 

Only  men  of  low  degree,  who  in  their 
life-time  dwell  in  the  narrow  house  of 
brutal  selfishness,  in  the  festering  decay 
of  their  moral,  their  diviner  powers, 
truly  die  and  are  buried,  and  their  tomb- 
stone tells  the  tale  of  their  end-all,  of 
their  total  extinction  and  final  death  on 
earth.  But  men  like  Moses  never  die, 
and  their  grave  can  be  seen  nowhere. 
His  creative  spirit  was  born  again  in  all 
the  generations  that  came  after  him  and 
walked  in  his  luminous  footsteps.  His 
mighty  spirit  will  be  born  again  and 
again,  will  live,  think,  inspire,  and  act 
in  all  generations  yet  to  be  born,  until 
mankind  will  cease  to  have  an  abiding 
place  on  this  rolling  globe.  He  came 
into  the  world  with  the  thousands  of 
great  men  who  scattered  darkness  and 
sowed  light  and  truth  and  justice.  His 
genius  dwelt  in  all  the  prophets  and 
masters  of  Israel,  and  worked  through 
them  salvation  unto  many  nations  and 
races.  His  spirit  lived  in  the  great 
Teacher  of  Galilee  and  preached  with 
heart  and  tongue  the  gospel  of  love  and 
universal  brotherhood.  His  spirit  went 


THE    RELIGION   OK    MOSES.  137 

forth  with  the  Jewish  Apostles,  to  redeem 
the  nations  from  the  curse  and  degrada- 
tion of  idolatry.  His  spirit  lived  again  in 
Mahomet,  the  prophet  of  Arabia.  His 
expanding  spirit  issued  forth  with  Colum- 
bus to  discover  this  continent,  to  be  the 
home  of  liberty  and  broad  humanity. 
He  was  present  in  the  great  moral  upris- 
ing of  Europe;  in  the  reformation,  urg- 
ing, encouraging,  teaching,  enlightening. 
His  mighty  spirit  fought  in  the  ranks  of 
those  who  waged  the  war  of  independ- 
ence. His  mind  composed  the  greatest 
modern  poem  of  humanity,  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  He  was  pres- 
ent in  the  thick  of  the  spiritual  battles, 
when  the  French  people  rose  against 
vicious  tyranny  and  debasing  priestcraft. 
His  creative  powers  have  greatly  helped 
to  bring  into  existence  the  better  and 
godlier  modern  world  of  enlightenment, 
of  universal  humanity  and  freedom.  He 
is  born  and  dwells  in  the  central  heart  of 
all  men  good  and  true,  of  all  women  holy 
and  merciful.  We  too,  late-born  wor- 
shipers of  Yahve,  sit  at  the  feet  of  the 
immortal  master,  listening  to  his  words, 


138  THE    RELIGION    OF    MOSES. 

receiving  our  life's  mission  from  him. 
His  eyes,  undimmed  by  time,  look  at  us 
with  the  love  of  a  father  and  teacher. 
His  lips  speak  to  us  in  imperishable 
words,  awakening  our  innermost  self, 
inspiring  us  to  noble  willing  and  doing. 
We  reverently  kiss  the  hem  of  his  gar- 
ment. By  that  magic  touch  a  spark  of 
his  immortality  and  greatness  interpen- 
etrates itself  with  our  own  soul,  and 
makes  it  universal,  deathless. 


V.   C.   NUNBMACHRR   PRESS.    LOUISVILLE.   KY. 


I 


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